Motorola said today it is investing in Amimon, a developer of chip technology for wireless transmission of high-definition video. Terms of the equity investment were not disclosed.
Amimon’s technology (FAQ) is designed to deliver uncompressed HD video streams in the unlicensed 5-GHz band. The company says the technology will be used in wireless flat-panel TVs, projectors and wireless high-definition multimedia interfaces.
Amimon says that its WHDI technology — which is a competing with UWB — is meant to replace HDMI cables and other high-end video connects.
Wi-Fi has a longer range but slower transfer rates. UltraWideBand works only within a 30-foot radius and maxes out around 480 megabits per second (similar to 802.11n). To get the quality equivalent of wires, Amimon says a transfer rates of up to 3GB per second for 1080p video is necessary. Costs can also be reduced, since compression/decompression chips would not be required.
WHDI uses the unlicensed 5GHz band, sending uncompressed HD video streams at up to 3G bps (bits per second) using 40MHz of bandwidth. A slower rate of 1.5G bps is possible using 20MHz wide channels.
As much as 80 percent of the Amimon approach is based on core 802.11n technologies—a 5GHz radio with OFDM modulation and a 4×5 MIMO antenna arrangement. Although the chips will carry a 50-100 percent premium over 802.11n chip sets initially, Amimon predicts within two or three years costs could come down to the level of mainstream Wi-Fi chip sets.
A pair of baseband and RF chips will consume less than 5W initially and probably cost less than $50, estimates the company.
.gif)
