Radiospire comes out from under the radar

Radiospire's executives have been regular attendees at our industry events, most recently at the Santa Clara CONNECTIONS™ conference. However, the company has largely been flying under our radar (by company executives' own admission) until last week, when the company announced a demonstration of an uncompressed HD video transmission in the 60-GHz spectrum using Radiospire's AirHook™ baseband technology and IBM's 60-GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) radio technology.

Last week, we spoke to Tan Rao, Radiospire's founder and vice president of product strategy to get an updated. He shared some interesting perspectives on where he thinks wireless HD video distribution is going that are different than what others are saying. Rao indicates that short-range cable replacement between high-def devices is where 60 GHz are going to be best positioned. He said that ultra-wideband has failed to capture that market, and he sees a significant potential for his company's solutions to establish a toehold in that space, particularly as he sees aggressive cost declines in the silicon.

Whether it's 60 GHz (Radiospire and SiBEAM/Wireless HD), 5 GHz (AMIMON), UWB (TZero, WiQuest, Pulse~LINK), or another solution, it's clear that 2008 and 2009 will be wildly experimental, as consumer electronics manufacturers test various solutions. The EE Times had a good article last week that talks about the many options that CE manufacturers have when it comes to wireless connectivity.