UWB Splitting Up?
November 17, 2003
By Vikki Lipset

Hopes for a swift resolution to the ultrawideband standards process were dashed last week when the 802.15.3a Task Group emerged from an IEEE meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., in deadlock, creating the distinct possibility that all that may come out of the whole mess is two de facto UWB standards.

The group, charged with defining the high-speed, short-range wireless networking specification, once again failed to confirm the proposal from the Texas Instruments and Intel-led Multiband OFDM Alliance (MBOA). The proposal has garnered the majority of the votes at each of the last three IEEE meetings, but can't come up with the 75 percent needed for confirmation. As a result, the MBOA, as well as Motorola, which backs a rival proposal, may end up moving forward outside of the IEEE process.

MBOA members have expressed frustration with Motorola for what they call its unwillingness to compromise. In a paper presented during last week's meeting, the MBOA suggested that Motorola's intention is to delay the process so that they can go to market with silicon first and become a de facto standard. In a widely predicted move, Motorola last week acquired XtremeSpectrum, which began sampling its UWB chipset last year.

The paper also indicated the group's concern that Motorola is attempting to force a split standard, which would mean that the specification would include two radios. Their fear is that this could result in market confusion and interoperability issues, and potentially kill the market.

Motorola officials were unavailable for comment as of presstime.

In the meantime, the MBOA is moving full steam ahead. The group said that it would continue to work on its specification and publish a .9 version of it in February 2004, followed by a 1.0 release in May 2004. MBOA-based silicon is expected to be available by the end of 2004, with products slated to hit the market in the second quarter of 2005.

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