Motorola moves toward next-generation 60-GHz mobile wireless
By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- EDN, October 31, 2007
Mobile phone maker Motorola Inc. has completed the final phase of its joint development agreement (JDA) with metal-insulator electronics provider Phiar Corp. According to the company, the completion of the JDA validates Phiar's metal-insulator electronics as a part of potential next-generation 60-GHz mobile wireless, point-to-point networks, wireless HDMI and imaging technologies from Motorola.
Phiar and Motorola entered the three-phase JDA in 2005. The JDA's Phase I gate required a Phiar diode with comparable or better performance than the best known Sb- and GaAs-based diodes currently on the market; Phase II focused on the performance of the diode integrated with matching circuitry; and Phase III involved taking the diode and incorporating it into a Motorola demo system where the Phiar technology was asked to meet certain bit error rate and minimum detectable power levels.
Historically, Motorola said, millimeter-wave wireless applications required gallium arsenide or other high performance semiconductors. Motorola claimed this week that it has successfully incorporated Phiar's metal-insulator diodes into their 60-GHz prototype system and demonstrated multi-Gbps data rates.
"By working together with Phiar, we were able to validate the performance of metal-insulator diodes in our receivers," Vida Ilderem, VP of physical and digital realization research for Motorola Labs, said in a statement. "The response of the Phiar diodes surpasses that of our known benchmarks of commercially available diodes for millimeter wave detector applications."
The companies have not provided details of when the technology will be integrated into commercial products.
