For Wireless USB, the Future StartsNow

Universal serial bus technology has made it easier to connect peripherals to PCs than prior methods, such as serial and parallel ports. USB lets users attach peripherals and other devices—such as digital cameras, game controllers, hard drives, printers, and scanners—without having to install individual drivers or use expansion cards, all without rebooting the computer. However, USB requires connections via cables, which can become a jumble when many devices are involved. And the cables limit the distance over which users can connect devices. To address this issue, a number of companies—including Alereon,Belkin International, D-Link, Fujitsu, Gemtek Technology, Hewlett-Packard, Icron Technologies, Intel, Lenovo, LSI Corp., Realtek Semi-conductor, Samsung, Staccato Communications, Synopsys, and Wisair—are beginning to release products based on wireless USB (WUSB). “There is significant interest among both computer and con-sumer-electronic vendors to move from wired to wireless peripheral connections,” said Brian O’Rourke, principal analyst for market research firm In-Stat. The use of consumer electronics with computers in home-entertainment systems has created a market for WUSB products, which offer easier implementation and communication of multimedia between devices than wired USB provides, said Synopsys product marketing manager Eric Huang. Moreover, the technology would let users move around with connected mobile devices beyond the reach of cables. The initial WUSB products will be dongles and hubs, but vendors will release computers and devices with built-in WUSB capabilities later this year, Huang predicted. Proponents believe large-scale WUSB sales are just over the horizon. As Figure 1 shows, In-Stat estimates there will be 4 billion USB-enabled devices worldwide by 2011, with 503 million, or 12.6 percent, using WUSB. This year, In-Stat predicts, out of 2.5 billion USB devices, only 3 million, or 0.1 percent, will be WUSB-enabled. However, the technology is new and faces potential problems once widely implemented, said Rob Enderle, principal of the Enderle Group, a market-research firm.


HERE COMES WIRELESS USB

HP, Intel, Lucent Technologies(now part of Alcatel-Lucent), Microsoft, NEC, and Royal Philips Electronics developed USB, which debuted in 1995 as an interface to connect peripherals to computers.
Several companies formed the Wireless USB Promoter Group in February 2004 to define the WUSB 1.0 specification, with the help of about 100 other members. The group completed the work in May 2005. The USB Implementers Forum(USB-IF; www.usb.org) now supports and promotes wired and one wireless flavor of the technology, whose current versions are USB 2.0 and WUSB 1.0. The USB-IF has a Certified WUSB(CWUSB) program that verifies computers’ and devices’ compliance to the WUSB approach that the forum supports. CWUSB lets systems transmit USB wirelessly via ultrawideband radio technology. However, vendors such as Icron that don’t use CWUSB provide a type of wireless USB that works with Wi-Fi as well as UWB.