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January 2005 - In This Issue [Cover Story] Tools Aid Compliance With RF Safety Program Since the construction of the earliest television and radio antenna towers, health concerns over "overexposure" to non-ionizing radiation have surrounded wireless transmissions. With the growth of wireless communications services, these concerns have only increased. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has therefore adopted guidelines that govern the exposure to RF emissions for those operating FCC-licensed wireless transmitters. Compliance by FCC licensees isn't just recommended. It... — Robert E. Johnson [Design Application] TV On The Go Is The New Mobile Experience As the market awaits the latest 3G phones, it's clear that consumers are eagerly anticipating new mobile-entertainment experiences. Mobile digital-broadcast TV is promising to deliver the big bang that will excite consumers worldwide. It marries two of history's hottest technological innovations: television and wireless telephones. The task that confronts wireless OEMs is to develop TV-enabled handsets that users will like. Limited offerings of analog broadcast television are now... — Bill Krenik Mesh Networking Smooths Traffic Flow Two major problems afflict automobile-based transportation systems in the U.S. and around the world: traffic accidents and congestion. About half a million people are killed each year in traffic accidents worldwide. While Americans make up only 3% of the world's population, they account for almost 9% of those traffic fatalities. In 2003, more than 42,000 Americans died in traffic-related accidents. Similarly, 42,000 or more died the year before that.1 In fact, the total number of... — Donald Wilkins Effective WLAN Testing Begins To Emerge Wireless-local-area-network (WLAN) technology first became prevalent in the small-office/home-office (SOHO) market. In that forgiving environment, convenience often outweighs performance concerns. But as 802.11 technology extends to the enterprise, wireless-system designers and developers must face the enterprise market's performance-based realities. Enterprise WLAN networks are evolving to support business-critical data and voice applications, large numbers of network users, and diverse... — Graham Celine , et al. [New Products] High-Gain Amplifier Spans 3.3 To 3.8 GHz The race to WiMAX is on and it can be seen in many parts of the industry. For instance, Hittite Microwave Corp. just came out with a high-efficiency GaAs InGaP HBT MMIC power amplifier. Although the HMC409LP4 is suited for 802.16d/e WiMAX applications, the amplifier also is useful in other broadband fixed wireless applications in that frequency range. It operates between 3.3 and 3.8 GHz. Using a minimum of external components, the amplifier provides 31 dB of gain and +32.5 dBm of... — Lisa Maliniak Miniature GPS Module Flaunts Very Low Power Between enhanced-911 (e-911) requirements and the rise of location-based services, Global Positioning Systems (GPSs) are becoming more commonplace in mobile devices. To feed this growth, Trimble debuted an ultra-low-power, miniature GPS receiver. The 12-channel Lassen iQ module features two GPS signal-sensitivity modes: Standard and Enhanced. When Enhanced mode is enabled, the module will automatically switch to higher sensitivity if satellite signals are weak. For fast... — Lisa Maliniak Reconfigurable DFM Tools Bring Closure To OPC The Halo suite of DFM tools from Aprio Technologies delivers a new answer to the thorny problems that come with chip-design respins. It also promises to help the designs that need optical-proximity-correction (OPC) modification to solve yield issues or the modified designs that require a quick change to mask data (also called ECOs). Aprio's Reconfigurable OPC Technology enables Halo to reconfigure an OPC'd layout for a new, optimized OPC result. Such a result can deliver huge performance... — Lisa Maliniak ZigBee Demo Kit Gets Users Going This year should mean growth for the ZigBee standard. To ensure such growth, the PICDEM Z platform from Microchip provides hardware and a free ZigBee protocol software stack that can be easily integrated into wireless products. The 2.4-GHz demonstration kit supports the ZigBee standard protocol for wirelessly networked control and monitoring applications. The PICDEM Z 2.4-GHz demonstration kit includes all of the hardware, software source code, and PCB layout files needed to... — Lisa Maliniak [Column] Public Safety Overcomes Communication Issues Without question, there is an ongoing and critical need to improve the mobile wireless communications infrastructure that's used by first responders and public-safety agencies across the U.S. In fact, certain problems have acted as key barriers to effective first-responder and public-safety communications and operations. Specifically, these problems include security limitations, communication interoperability challenges, and the availability—or lack thereof—of adequate bandwidth... — Edward Swallow , et al. Technologies Look To Bring Backup Power Out Of Flux Across the wireless industry, a confluence of factors has made the upgrade of backup power a top priority. Networks are straining to handle the burgeoning number of products and the skyrocketing demand for them. At the same time, networks must provide the reliability that consumers expect. In 2003, the blackouts on the East Coast of the U.S. revealed the extent of this pressure. Not surprisingly, carriers are striving to optimize every aspect of their networks including backup power. The... — Eoin Connolly [News] Wireless Link Enables Binaural Hearing Aid Now that baby boomers are well on their way to retirement, the demand for hearing aids will surely begin heating up. About 80% of individuals with hearing loss would benefit from hearing aids in both ears rather than just one. Thanks to wireless technology from Siemens Hearing Instruments, an advanced binaural hearing system is now available to the 28 million Americans with hearing loss. Siemens' Acuris system incorporates the company's ear-to-ear (e2e) wireless technology (... — Lisa Maliniak Design A Wireless Winner For wireless developers, there's nothing like being recognized for a job well done. Now, they can turn to the second-annual Wireless Innovation Contest 2005 (WIC 05) for such recognition. In exchange for promising ideas, this contest offers a valuable boost toward marketability. The contest, which is under the aegis of the Wireless Innovation Network of British Columbia (WINBC), is open to Canadian and American wireless developers and solution providers. It's intended to recognize... — Lisa Maliniak High-Powered Collaborators Produce Low-Powered SoC Demo For next-generation wireless devices, longer battery life is a top-echelon design goal. But achieving that goal often requires expertise in multiple technology domains. Few if any single organizations possess such expertise. As a result, ARM, Artisan Components, National Semiconductor, Synopsys, and UMC have decided to funnel their individual technology strengths into a collaboration. The companies will deliver a comprehensive low-power, energy-efficient, system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology... — Lisa Maliniak Networking Specification Hits Global Milestone Recently, the ZigBee Alliance completed the ratification of its maiden ZigBee specification. That ratification was the culmination of two years of worldwide development and interoperability testing. Thanks to its completion, it should be easier to develop and deploy power-efficient and cost-effective wireless monitoring, control, and sensing networks. For the alliance-member companies with ZigBee-ready technology, the ratification allows them to quickly enhance their products and begin... — Lisa Maliniak Short Clips TeleCIS Wireless, Inc. (www.telecis.com) announced its intent to enter the WiMAX broadband-wireless arena by building upon its success in the WLAN chip sector. The company wants to provide cost-effective, multi-protocol system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions that combine WLAN and WiMAX technologies on a single chip. David Sumi, who is Secretary of the WiMAX Forum and has a seat on the forum's Board of Directors, has joined TeleCIS as VP of Marketing. In addition, TeleCIS raised a... — Nancy Friedrich [Editor's Note] Services Put An End To Simple Times Did you ever watch any of those old, black-and-white science-fiction movies? They were so forward thinking in their depiction of technology. A spaceship crew, for instance, was often shown talking via handheld devices that were part of complex communications systems. Yet the moviemakers' imaginations only went so far, as the films always showed wired devices. As we begin 2005, the situation is the opposite: It's becoming harder to imagine a world that's not wireless. Over the past... — Nancy Friedrich [On The Wireless Front] On The Wireless Front Springfield, Virginia A new solution to the poor signal quality of wireless networks is as economical as it is flexible: the Nearson 7-dBi high-gain rubber-duck antenna. Now, blind spots and patchy signals can be replaced by high-quality reception without the cost or power consumption of high-powered radios. The Nearson 7-dBi antenna brings the performance of an infrastructure antenna to a portable antenna that is small, lightweight, and very cost... — Staff |
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