On one side, the backers of the WirelessHD version of 60 GHz technology including a handful of consumer electronics giants and startup SiBeam want to defend their approach which was first to market. On the other side, members of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance driven by top Wi-Fi chip vendors want to establish a new version of 60 GHz technology.

Just prior to the Beijing meeting, the WiGig group struck a deal with the Wi-Fi Alliance which has started a task group to certify a 60 GHz version of Wi-Fi. WiGig also convinced archrival SiBeam to build hybrid chips that use both 60 GHz techniques.

The two sides battled it out in competing IEEE meetings in 2008. At that time the 802.15.3c group was completing its spec based on the approach of the WirelessHD Consortium. The .11ad group was just trying to get started as a separate effort based on Wi-Fi at 60 GHz.

Now the 802.15.3c work is done and the .11ad work is just starting in earnest. This week, engineers are for the first time making their competing technical proposals in one group.

According to one engineer in the meeting, the group has been able to agree on a compromise in the first day of its meeting despite its long standing conflicts.

"This meeting is interesting, all the lobbying wheeling and dealing was [apparently] done before the meeting started," said Chia Yong Choon, a researcher with a Singapore technology institute at the Beijing meeting.

The WirelessHD group "went for a compromise approach with Wigig," Chia said. "We just passed a motion initiated by [the WirelessHD camp and] seconded by Intel--it is progressing extremely fast," he said

The .11ad group essentially agreed that both proposals have "many similarities." They agreed to make one proposal, believed to be the WiGig approach, as the basis for a first draft standard. However, the also agreed to start a closed door process in two weeks to address how to integrate the competing proposal into the draft. They also agreed to approve the resulting draft at a meeting in September.

Such a move could essentially bless the hybrid approach SiBeam took with its recently announced chip set. The result could be to enable a wide variety of chip makers to come to market with WiGig, WirelessHD and hybrid chips and let the market choose what it will adopt.

One of the major differences in the two specs is that WirelessHD uses orthogonal frequency multiplexing division. WiGig uses a single carrier approach.

In Beijing, Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) proposed a hybrid technique that supports a "single carrier system and common mode for co-existence in the 802.15.3c standard," said Hiroshi Harada, a researcher at NICT who made the proposal May 18.

"We believe the contributors who support 802.15.3c can support this proposal because this proposal has included a co-existing mechanism with 802.15.3c," said Harada. "The chip venders who would like to promote the 802.15.3c system [will find it] easy to implement the PHY and MAC in our proposal," he said.

The proposal was backed by Hitachi, Fujitsu and others believed to include Sony and Panasonic. The Japanese giants have been backers of the WirelessHD standard, some using it in existing TV products.

The WiGig backers include Intel, Atheros, Broadcom, Marvell and other dominant suppliers of today's Wi-Fi chips.

By: DocMemory
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