Renesas Electronics Corp announced a wireless technology that enables to wirelessly exchange data at a distance of 1cm with a transmission rate of 15Mbps by using an on-chip antenna with a diameter of 1mm.
The announcement was made June 16, 2010, at the 2010 Symposium on VLSI Circuits, which runs from June 16 to 18, 2010, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The company claims that the new technology may unwire, for example, the connectors of memory cards.
In short-range wireless data communications, data is usually demodulated based on synchronization signals generated by the PLL of a receiving circuit. But this method tend to cause reception errors because of the fluctuation of the synchronization signals. This time, Renesas Electronics solved this problem by applying a wire communication technology that simultaneously transmits data signals and synchronization signals (source synchronous communication) to wireless communication.
Specifically, the new wireless technology transmits data signals with a carrier wave having a frequency of 3.6GHz and synchronization signals with a carrier wave having a frequency of 4.8GHz. And it separates data signals and synchronization signals by using the filter of a receiving circuit.
As a modulation method, ASK (amplitude shift keying) was employed. Because it eliminates the need for the PLL of a receiving circuit, the consumption current of the receiving circuit can be reduced from 40mA to 20mA, Renesas Electronics said.
This time, Renesas Electronics prototyped a transceiver circuit having an on-chip antenna with a diameter of 1mm by using 90nm CMOS process technology and evaluated it. And the company found that a data transmission rate of 15Mbps and a bit error rate of 10-5, which are enough for transmitting video, were achieved at a transmission distance of 1cm.
In addition, Renesas Electronics confirmed that the location error of up to 1cm can be tolerated for the transmitting antenna and the receiving antenna.
The company is planning to commercialize the technology in two or three years. And it intends to enhance the data transmission speed.
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