FCC licenses ultrawideband chipset

Freescale Semiconductor has become the first company to receive Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certification for its ultrawideband (UWB) communications solution.

Freescale Semiconductor has become the first company to receive Federal Communications Commission (FCC) certification for its ultrawideband (UWB) communications solution.

With this certification, Freescale can begin commercial shipments of its XS110 chipset immediately.

This enables Freescale's customers to design UWB technology into their consumer electronics applications for unlicensed operation anywhere in the USA.

UWB allows consumers to create a home theatre environment without cables.

It also provides instantaneous, wireless transfer of images from a digital camera to a PC/laptop or television.

Employees can connect laptops and projectors without wires and music fans can transmit multiple megabytes of MP3 audio from laptops to MP3 players.

Initial consumer applications are expected to include large screen displays (plasma, LCD), digital video recorders and set-top boxes, with mobile applications such as portable hard drives and digital cameras to follow later in 2005.

"By working closely with the FCC over the past two years, we felt confident that our direct sequence UWB (DS-UWB) approach would comply and enable coexistence with other wireless technologies", said Martin Rofheart, Director of UWB Operations for Freescale.

"With the FCC's action, we're now focused on delivering UWB product to our consumer electronics customers so their products will be able to reach the US market as early as the holiday season".

The XS110 chipset uses the DS-UWB approach, which is currently a leading candidate for the IEEE802.15.3 standard for high-speed wireless personal area networks (WPANs).

Using DS-UWB, the chipset achieves over 110Mbit/s datarates and consumes minimal power, making it ideal for multimedia applications requiring the wireless distribution of audio and video.

The FCC approved rules for the commercial use of ultrawideband on 14th February 2002 and the First Report and Order was published in April 2002, constituting formal approval of unlicensed spectrum between 3.1 and 10.6GHz for ultrawideband technology.

Prior to FCC certification, Freescale was operating under special licence while sampling products to customers and undergoing FCC and third-party interference testing.

Following rigorous testing by the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology Laboratory, Freescale's XS110 solution has been shown to meet the Part 15 emission limits.

It also adheres to the spectral mask set forth in the FCC's 2002 UWB Report and Order.

This spectral mask requires ultrawideband operation within the allocated 7.5GHz of spectrum at extremely low power levels to protect existing spectrum users including cell phones, GPS systems and satellites.

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