WiMedia Alliance
Encyclopedia
The WiMedia Alliance is a non-profit open industry association that promotes and enables the rapid adoption, regulation, standardization and multi-vendor interoperability of ultra-wideband
(UWB) worldwide.
WiMedia Alliance develop, maintain, enhance and reference technical specifications including:
WiMedia Alliance and MultiBand OFDM Alliance Special Interest Group (MBOA-SIG) merged into a single organization in 2005. The merged group operate as the WiMedia Alliance.
and physical (PHY) layer
specifications based on Multi-band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM). The solution enables shortrange multimedia file transfers at data rates of 480 Mbit/s and beyond with low power consumption, and operates in the 3.1 to 10.6 GHz
UWB spectrum. WiMedia UWB is optimized for the personal computer (PC)
, consumer electronics (CE)
, mobile device and automotive market segments.
The UWB
system provides a wireless PAN with data payload communication capabilities of 53.3, 55, 80, 106.67, 110, 160, 200, 320, 480, 640, 800, 960, and 1024 Mbit/s.
The WiMedia UWB platform is also optimized for complementary wireless personal area network (WPAN)
technologies such as Bluetooth 3.0
, Certified Wireless USB
, the 1394 Trade Group’s “Wireless FireWire” Protocol Adaptation Layer (PAL) (Non-IP Peer to Peer architecture) and Wireless TCP/IP
- UPnP
. Different wireless protocols can operate within the same wireless personal area network without interference. In addition to these, many other industry protocols can reside on top of the WiMedia UWB platform. Those include Ethernet
, DVI
and HDMI
. Presently, the WiMedia PHY specification has an over-the-air uncoded capability of more than 1024 Mbit/s; the specification is highly scalable and will ultimately support wireless DVI
and HDMI
, operating at multiple Gbit/s data rates.
The WiMedia Network (formerly WiNET) is a protocol adaptation layer (PAL) that builds on the WiMedia UWB common radio platform to augment the convergence platform with TCP/IP services.
Certified Wireless USB can operate in two ways:
Bluetooth, Wireless 1394, IP (WiMedia Network) operate on top of Wimedia UWB PHY - Wimedia UWB MAC - Convergence Layer like Coexistence Wireless USB
.
Within the WiMedia MAC specification is the MAC Convergence Architecture (WiMCA) that allows applications to share UWB
resources. WiMCA defines a number of policies, including channel-time utilization; secure association, authentication and data transfer; device and WPAN management; quality of service; discovery of services; and power management.
WiMedia plans to develop universal IP addressing protocols in alignment with organizations such as the UPnP
Forum and the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).
Current Board Members of the Alliance include: Alereon
, CSR
, Olympus
, Samsung
and Wisair.
enhancement amendment to IEEE 802.15.3 for applications which involve imaging and multimedia.
The attempt to create an IEEE
ultrawideband standard failed because of several factors.
First, based on execution of the approved IEEE 802.15.3a Task Group down selection procedure, there were only two proposals remaining. Each of the remaining proposals contained mutually exclusive communication architectures. Neither proposer's radio could communicate with the other. One proposal was a merger of a novel OFDM
architecture proposed by Texas Instruments and eventually adopted by the majority of the industry, by the USB-IF for Wireless USB and by the Bluetooth SIG for high speed Bluetooth. This merged proposal became known as the MB-OFDM proposal and was sponsored by Texas Instruments as a member of the Multi Band OFDM Alliance, which is now part of WiMedia. The other proposal was a merger between an original direct sequence pulse based design (DS-UWB) contributed by Xtreme Spectrum and DecaWave that was modified to include features of several other pulse based proposals. Ironically, after the dust settled through several years of each proposer bashing the other's technical implementation, both remaining proposals achieved nearly identical theoretical performance in terms of data throughput, channel robustness, overall design DC power consumption, and device cost. Not until actual WiMedia devices entered the market was shown that WiMedia's proposal and implementation did not come close to living up to its advertised specification of 480 Mbps.
Second, there were numerous attempts by each proposer to achieve both victory in the down selection vote, and then reach the 75% approval rating required for task group confirmation of the selected technical proposal, which never happened. In the first round of down selection, the MB-OFDM proposal was selected. Through several subsequent rounds of down selection, the selected proposal alternated between MB-OFDM and DS-UWB, with neither being able to achieve technical confirmation.
There were several attempts to create a compromise solution, the most notable was a proposal that would have allowed the MB-OFDM and DS-UWB radios to communicate with each other and share spectrum. Based on a concept called the Common Signaling Mode (CSM) it specified supporting a lower data rate than the minimum mandatory 110 Mbit/s, for purposes of spectrum coordination and allowing other elements necessary for proper operation of a wireless personal area network. The Common Signaling Mode (CSM) was proposed by John Santhoff of Pulse~LINK as a way forward for both competing proposals that would allow complete coexistence and at least minimal interoperability. Companies supporting the MB-OFDM proposal insisted that a common signaling mode was not needed or technically feasible and that their customer research supported a strict notion that only one physical layer (PHY)
would be tolerated by the consumer market. Thus, even though the DS-UWB supporters embraced CSM as a bridge between the two proposals, the lack of acceptance by MB-OFDM supporters killed what turned out to be the best solution to achieve a compromise between the proposers. It's interesting to note that the concept of a Common Signaling Mode (CSM) was later adopted by IEEE 802.15.3c for the 60 GHz PHY layer and renamed Common Mode Signaling to solve the same two PHY problem.
The contest became so contentious that the originally elected Task Group Chair, Bob Heile, who was also the 802.15 Working Group Chair, resigned his position. Bob Heile was replaced by Jim Lansford, CTO of Alereon
, and Gregg Rasor, Director of Ultrawideband Research and Development in Motorola
Labs, who co-chaired IEEE 802.15.3a until its end. The idea of co-chairs was brought about in yet another attempt to forge a compromise that would generate an IEEE standard for ultrawideband.
Consequently, in the Spring of 2006, the IEEE 802.15.3a Task Group was officially disbanded by the IEEE Standards Association. On January 19, 2006, IEEE 802.15.3a task group (TG3a) members voted to recommend that the IEEE 802 Executive Committee ask NESCOM to withdraw the December 2002 project authorization request (PAR), which initiated the development of a high data rate UWB PHY amendment for the IEEE 802.15.3 WPAN
standard.
The most commendable achievement of IEEE 802.15.3a was its consolidation of 23 UWB PHY specifications into two proposals using: Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) UWB, supported by the WiMedia Alliance, then adopted by the USB-IF for Wireless USB and by the Bluetooth SIG for high speed Bluetooth, while the Direct Sequence - UWB (DS-UWB) approach, supported by the UWB Forum
, was abandoned.
released two international ISO-based specifications (ECMA-368 and ECMA-369) for UWB technology based on the WiMedia Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Common Radio Platform.
standard (ETSI TS 102 455).
standards in 2007 respectively with numbers:
Ultra-wideband
Ultra-wideband is a radio technology that can be used at very low energy levels for short-range high-bandwidth communications by using a large portion of the radio spectrum. UWB has traditional applications in non-cooperative radar imaging...
(UWB) worldwide.
WiMedia Alliance develop, maintain, enhance and reference technical specifications including:
- PHYPHYPHY is an abbreviation for the physical layer of the OSI model.An instantiation of PHY connects a link layer device to a physical medium such as an optical fiber or copper cable. A PHY device typically includes a Physical Coding Sublayer and a Physical Medium Dependent layer. The PCS encodes and...
and MACMedia Access ControlThe media access control data communication protocol sub-layer, also known as the medium access control, is a sublayer of the data link layer specified in the seven-layer OSI model , and in the four-layer TCP/IP model... - Convergence architecture to provide coexistence and fairness including support for multiple applications (e.g., Wireless USBWireless USBWireless USB is a short-range, high-bandwidth wireless radio communication protocol created by the . Wireless USB is sometimes abbreviated as "WUSB", although the USB Implementers Forum discourages this practice and instead prefers to call the technology "Certified Wireless USB" to distinguish it...
, Wireless 1394 FireWire, BluetoothBluetoothBluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
, IPInternet ProtocolThe Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
, etc.) - A protocol adaptation layer for the Internet Protocol
- IP-based application profiles
WiMedia Alliance and MultiBand OFDM Alliance Special Interest Group (MBOA-SIG) merged into a single organization in 2005. The merged group operate as the WiMedia Alliance.
WiMedia Alliance
WiMedia UWB is the basis for the industry’s first UWB standards. The WiMedia Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Common Radio Platform incorporates media access control (MAC) layerMedia Access Control
The media access control data communication protocol sub-layer, also known as the medium access control, is a sublayer of the data link layer specified in the seven-layer OSI model , and in the four-layer TCP/IP model...
and physical (PHY) layer
PHY
PHY is an abbreviation for the physical layer of the OSI model.An instantiation of PHY connects a link layer device to a physical medium such as an optical fiber or copper cable. A PHY device typically includes a Physical Coding Sublayer and a Physical Medium Dependent layer. The PCS encodes and...
specifications based on Multi-band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM). The solution enables shortrange multimedia file transfers at data rates of 480 Mbit/s and beyond with low power consumption, and operates in the 3.1 to 10.6 GHz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
UWB spectrum. WiMedia UWB is optimized for the personal computer (PC)
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, consumer electronics (CE)
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
, mobile device and automotive market segments.
The UWB
Ultra-wideband
Ultra-wideband is a radio technology that can be used at very low energy levels for short-range high-bandwidth communications by using a large portion of the radio spectrum. UWB has traditional applications in non-cooperative radar imaging...
system provides a wireless PAN with data payload communication capabilities of 53.3, 55, 80, 106.67, 110, 160, 200, 320, 480, 640, 800, 960, and 1024 Mbit/s.
The WiMedia UWB platform is also optimized for complementary wireless personal area network (WPAN)
WPAN
WPAN is a commercial television station in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, serving the Mobile, Alabama market on channel 53 as an affiliate of Jewelry TV. Founded February 22, 1983, the station is owned by Franklin Media, Inc...
technologies such as Bluetooth 3.0
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
, Certified Wireless USB
Wireless USB
Wireless USB is a short-range, high-bandwidth wireless radio communication protocol created by the . Wireless USB is sometimes abbreviated as "WUSB", although the USB Implementers Forum discourages this practice and instead prefers to call the technology "Certified Wireless USB" to distinguish it...
, the 1394 Trade Group’s “Wireless FireWire” Protocol Adaptation Layer (PAL) (Non-IP Peer to Peer architecture) and Wireless TCP/IP
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
- UPnP
Digital Living Network Alliance
The Digital Living Network Alliance is a non-profit collaborative trade organization established by Sony in June 2003, and has more than 250 member companies in the mobile, consumer electronics, PC, and service provider industries...
. Different wireless protocols can operate within the same wireless personal area network without interference. In addition to these, many other industry protocols can reside on top of the WiMedia UWB platform. Those include Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
, DVI
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
and HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface
HDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA...
. Presently, the WiMedia PHY specification has an over-the-air uncoded capability of more than 1024 Mbit/s; the specification is highly scalable and will ultimately support wireless DVI
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
and HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface
HDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA...
, operating at multiple Gbit/s data rates.
The WiMedia Network (formerly WiNET) is a protocol adaptation layer (PAL) that builds on the WiMedia UWB common radio platform to augment the convergence platform with TCP/IP services.
Certified Wireless USB can operate in two ways:
- Coexistence Wireless USB operates on top of Wimedia UWB PHY - Wimedia UWB MAC - Convergence Layer.
- Pure Wireless USB operates directly on top of Wimedia UWB PHY.
Bluetooth, Wireless 1394, IP (WiMedia Network) operate on top of Wimedia UWB PHY - Wimedia UWB MAC - Convergence Layer like Coexistence Wireless USB
Wireless USB
Wireless USB is a short-range, high-bandwidth wireless radio communication protocol created by the . Wireless USB is sometimes abbreviated as "WUSB", although the USB Implementers Forum discourages this practice and instead prefers to call the technology "Certified Wireless USB" to distinguish it...
.
Within the WiMedia MAC specification is the MAC Convergence Architecture (WiMCA) that allows applications to share UWB
Ultra-wideband
Ultra-wideband is a radio technology that can be used at very low energy levels for short-range high-bandwidth communications by using a large portion of the radio spectrum. UWB has traditional applications in non-cooperative radar imaging...
resources. WiMCA defines a number of policies, including channel-time utilization; secure association, authentication and data transfer; device and WPAN management; quality of service; discovery of services; and power management.
WiMedia plans to develop universal IP addressing protocols in alignment with organizations such as the UPnP
UPnP Forum
The UPnP Forum is a computer industry initiative to enable simple and robust connectivity to stand-alone devices and personal computers from many different vendors....
Forum and the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).
Current Board Members of the Alliance include: Alereon
Alereon
Alereon, Inc, is a fabless semiconductor company. It uses ultrawideband radio technology to develop Certified Wireless USB and WiMedia Alliance compliant UWB integrated circuits . Headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States, Alereon also has offices in Korea and Hong Kong...
, CSR
CSR plc
CSR , or Cambridge Silicon Radio, is a company based in Cambridge, England. CSR is a fabless semiconductor company whose main product lines include connectivity, audio and location chips. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index...
, Olympus
Olympus Corporation
is a Japan-based manufacturer of optics and reprography products. Olympus was established on 12 October 1919, initially specializing in microscope and thermometer businesses. Its global headquarters are in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, while its USA operations are based in Center Valley, Pennsylvania,...
, Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
and Wisair.
IEEE
IEEE 802.15.3a was an attempt to provide a higher speed UWB PHYPHY
PHY is an abbreviation for the physical layer of the OSI model.An instantiation of PHY connects a link layer device to a physical medium such as an optical fiber or copper cable. A PHY device typically includes a Physical Coding Sublayer and a Physical Medium Dependent layer. The PCS encodes and...
enhancement amendment to IEEE 802.15.3 for applications which involve imaging and multimedia.
The attempt to create an IEEE
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...
ultrawideband standard failed because of several factors.
First, based on execution of the approved IEEE 802.15.3a Task Group down selection procedure, there were only two proposals remaining. Each of the remaining proposals contained mutually exclusive communication architectures. Neither proposer's radio could communicate with the other. One proposal was a merger of a novel OFDM
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing is a method of encoding digital data on multiple carrier frequencies. OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for wideband digital communication, whether wireless or over copper wires, used in applications such as digital television and audio...
architecture proposed by Texas Instruments and eventually adopted by the majority of the industry, by the USB-IF for Wireless USB and by the Bluetooth SIG for high speed Bluetooth. This merged proposal became known as the MB-OFDM proposal and was sponsored by Texas Instruments as a member of the Multi Band OFDM Alliance, which is now part of WiMedia. The other proposal was a merger between an original direct sequence pulse based design (DS-UWB) contributed by Xtreme Spectrum and DecaWave that was modified to include features of several other pulse based proposals. Ironically, after the dust settled through several years of each proposer bashing the other's technical implementation, both remaining proposals achieved nearly identical theoretical performance in terms of data throughput, channel robustness, overall design DC power consumption, and device cost. Not until actual WiMedia devices entered the market was shown that WiMedia's proposal and implementation did not come close to living up to its advertised specification of 480 Mbps.
Second, there were numerous attempts by each proposer to achieve both victory in the down selection vote, and then reach the 75% approval rating required for task group confirmation of the selected technical proposal, which never happened. In the first round of down selection, the MB-OFDM proposal was selected. Through several subsequent rounds of down selection, the selected proposal alternated between MB-OFDM and DS-UWB, with neither being able to achieve technical confirmation.
There were several attempts to create a compromise solution, the most notable was a proposal that would have allowed the MB-OFDM and DS-UWB radios to communicate with each other and share spectrum. Based on a concept called the Common Signaling Mode (CSM) it specified supporting a lower data rate than the minimum mandatory 110 Mbit/s, for purposes of spectrum coordination and allowing other elements necessary for proper operation of a wireless personal area network. The Common Signaling Mode (CSM) was proposed by John Santhoff of Pulse~LINK as a way forward for both competing proposals that would allow complete coexistence and at least minimal interoperability. Companies supporting the MB-OFDM proposal insisted that a common signaling mode was not needed or technically feasible and that their customer research supported a strict notion that only one physical layer (PHY)
PHY
PHY is an abbreviation for the physical layer of the OSI model.An instantiation of PHY connects a link layer device to a physical medium such as an optical fiber or copper cable. A PHY device typically includes a Physical Coding Sublayer and a Physical Medium Dependent layer. The PCS encodes and...
would be tolerated by the consumer market. Thus, even though the DS-UWB supporters embraced CSM as a bridge between the two proposals, the lack of acceptance by MB-OFDM supporters killed what turned out to be the best solution to achieve a compromise between the proposers. It's interesting to note that the concept of a Common Signaling Mode (CSM) was later adopted by IEEE 802.15.3c for the 60 GHz PHY layer and renamed Common Mode Signaling to solve the same two PHY problem.
The contest became so contentious that the originally elected Task Group Chair, Bob Heile, who was also the 802.15 Working Group Chair, resigned his position. Bob Heile was replaced by Jim Lansford, CTO of Alereon
Alereon
Alereon, Inc, is a fabless semiconductor company. It uses ultrawideband radio technology to develop Certified Wireless USB and WiMedia Alliance compliant UWB integrated circuits . Headquartered in Austin, Texas, United States, Alereon also has offices in Korea and Hong Kong...
, and Gregg Rasor, Director of Ultrawideband Research and Development in Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
Labs, who co-chaired IEEE 802.15.3a until its end. The idea of co-chairs was brought about in yet another attempt to forge a compromise that would generate an IEEE standard for ultrawideband.
Consequently, in the Spring of 2006, the IEEE 802.15.3a Task Group was officially disbanded by the IEEE Standards Association. On January 19, 2006, IEEE 802.15.3a task group (TG3a) members voted to recommend that the IEEE 802 Executive Committee ask NESCOM to withdraw the December 2002 project authorization request (PAR), which initiated the development of a high data rate UWB PHY amendment for the IEEE 802.15.3 WPAN
WPAN
WPAN is a commercial television station in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, serving the Mobile, Alabama market on channel 53 as an affiliate of Jewelry TV. Founded February 22, 1983, the station is owned by Franklin Media, Inc...
standard.
The most commendable achievement of IEEE 802.15.3a was its consolidation of 23 UWB PHY specifications into two proposals using: Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) UWB, supported by the WiMedia Alliance, then adopted by the USB-IF for Wireless USB and by the Bluetooth SIG for high speed Bluetooth, while the Direct Sequence - UWB (DS-UWB) approach, supported by the UWB Forum
UWB Forum
The UWB Forum was an industry organization dedicated to ensuring that Ultra-Wideband products from multiple vendors are truly interoperable...
, was abandoned.
ECMA
On December 8, 2005 Ecma InternationalEcma International
Ecma International is an international, private non-profit standards organization for information and communication systems. It acquired its name in 1994, when the European Computer Manufacturers Association changed its name to reflect the organization's global reach and activities...
released two international ISO-based specifications (ECMA-368 and ECMA-369) for UWB technology based on the WiMedia Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Common Radio Platform.
ETSI
ECMA-368 is also an ETSIEuropean Telecommunications Standards Institute
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is an independent, non-profit, standardization organization in the telecommunications industry in Europe, with worldwide projection...
standard (ETSI TS 102 455).
ISO
The Ecma 368 and 369 standards were approved as ISO/IECInternational Electrotechnical Commission
The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"...
standards in 2007 respectively with numbers:
- ISO/IEC 26907:2007 - Information technology -- Telecommunications and information exchange between systems -- High Rate Ultra Wideband PHY and MAC Standard
- ISO/IEC 26908:2007 - Information technology -- MAC-PHY Interface for ISO/IEC 26907.
External links
- WiMedia Alliance
- Creonic WiMedia-compliant 1 Gbit/s LDPC Decoder
- Ecma International
- ETSI
- ISO
- Standard ECMA-368 High Rate Ultra Wideband PHY and MAC Standard
- Standard ECMA-369 MAC-PHY Interface for ECMA-368
- ETSI Publications Download Area This will open ETSI document search engine, to find the latest version of the document enter a search string (e.g. TS 102 455 for Wimedia standard). Free registration is required to download files.
- ISO/IEC Information Technology Task Force (ITTF)
- ITTF - Freely Available Standards - Free download of ISO/IEC 26907 and ISO/IEC 26908
- ISO/IEC 26907:2007
- ISO/IEC 26908:2007
- ISO JTC 1 / SC 6 standards