Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig), the organization advancing the adoption and widespread use of 60GHz wireless technology worldwide, on Thursday announced the completion of its unified wireless specification. The WiGig spec enables high performance wireless display and audio and provides data transfer rates more than 10 times faster than today’s wireless LANs, while supporting backward compatibility with existing Wi-Fi devices.

“When we launched the WiGig Alliance in May ‘09, we announced our plan to complete the industry’s first unified 60GHz specification by Q4 2009, and we are proud to deliver on this promise to the industry. We are rapidly paving the way for the introduction of the next generation of high-performance wireless products – PCs, mobile handsets, TVs and displays, Blu-ray disc players, digital cameras and many more,” said Dr. Ali Sadri, president and chairman of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance.

The WiGig version 1.0 specification includes the following key elements:

• Supports data transmission rates up to 7Gb/s – more than ten times faster than the highest 802.11n rate;
• Supplements and extends the 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and is backward compatible with the IEEE 802.11 standard;
• Physical layer enables both the low power and the high performance WiGig devices, guaranteeing  interoperability and communication at gigabit rates;
• Protocol adaptation layers are being developed to support specific system interfaces including data buses for PC peripherals and display interfaces for HDTVs, monitors and projectors;
• Support for beamforming, enabling robust communication at distances beyond 10 meters;
• Widely used advanced security and power management for WiGig devices.

The completed specification is now ready for member review and is anticipated to be made available to WiGig adopter members in Q1 2010.

WiGig Alliance has experienced steady growth with four new members joining in Q4, with total membership approaching 30 industry-leading companies. Nvidia Corp. has joined the organization’s board of directors, and Advanced Micro Devices, SK Telecom and TMC have joined as contributor members. Semiconductor industry experts AMD and Nvidia will boost the organization’s support for PC wireless display applications. SK Telecom, the largest South Korean telecommunications company, and TMC, an independent testing and certification lab headquartered in China, add depth and bring additional expertise to the organization.

Tags: WiGig