Alereon has received a $4 million cash infusion from Samsung Venture Investment for further development of ultrawideband and Certified Wireless Universal Serial Bus (USB) physical-layer chips, reports EE Times.
CEO Eric Brookman at Alereon (Austin, Texas) said his company anticipates collaborating with Samsung Electronics on the integration of UWB and Wireless USB devices in consumer electronic products.
UWB is a wireless technology that can transmit data at 480Mbps over short distances at low power. Applications include sending video from a computer to a television or photos from a digital camera to a computer. It was also approved by the European Commission’s Radio Spectrum Committee, paving the way for the technology to be used in Europe as early as February.
The Multi-Band OFDM Alliance, now merged with the WiMedia Alliance has become the dominant UWB “standard” (since the IEEE 802.15.3a committee gave up) and will likely be found in “wireless USB” products.
According to Alereon’s CEO Brookman, “All new X86 PCs will come standard with Wireless USB. Likewise, most new PC peripherals and the higher end models of most digital cameras, video cameras, MP3 players and cell phones will also come with Wireless USB.
.gif)
