Ultrawideband - Show Me the Money

One of the advantages originally touted for Ultrawideband was that it would be a very low cost solution. It's time to "show me the money," says ABI Research.

According to principal analyst of semiconductor research, Alan Varghese, heated discussions in the IEEE standards bodies have made one thing clear: there is not going to be a UWB Standard, and the two disputing sides — the UWB Forum and the MBOA Alliance — are going to market with their separate designs.

"This implies that UWB devices will not interoperate," says Varghese, "so the consumer better know the difference between Direct Sequence and Multiband OFDM. This is not good news."

That's not all. UWB, when originally discussed, was supposed to offer the advantage of not needing modulators, synthesizers, and other RF circuitry. Vendors mentioned a price point of $3 for the UWB chip, ensuring widespread penetration into all kinds of consumer electronics.

Today, Freescale's 3-chip solution goes for the high teens, and the MBOA talks about entering at a price point of about $14. This is not good news either. Rival 802.11n will enter at a similar price, and it enjoys industry consensus. Its devices will interoperate and work at much higher ranges, and it is an evolution from the well known standards, 802.11a, b, and g.

What advantage does UWB have over 802.11n for CE devices? It's unfortunate for vendors if you have to ask that question. "UWB vendors better enter the market with all-CMOS designs, integrate to one chip quickly, then scale rapidly down in process geometry to prove that UWB truly is a low-cost technology," Varghese says.

ABI Research's study, "Ultrawideband — Standards, Technology, OEM Strategy, and Markets" discusses these issues in detail. It also analyzes the volumes and revenues from UWB electronics and chipsets, and the penetration of UWB technology across a variety of equipment and market segments.

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