Atheros, Wilocity collaborate on 60GHz wireless PCIe

Exciting things are afoot in wireless networking. Based on the work of the WiGig Alliance (which we've already told you all about), Atheros and Wilocity plan to make devices that use 60GHz wireless technology not just for ultra-high-speed networking, but also for wireless PCI Express connectivity.

These devices should start sampling next year, and based what Wilocity told us, they'll allow notebooks to connect to displays, storage devices, and even auxiliary graphics processors, all wirelessly. The same 60GHz wireless adapters will support 2.5GHz and 5GHz bands, as well, so they'll let you connect to existing Wi-Fi networks.

Here, the key to wireless peripheral connectivity is wireless PCI Express (wPCIe), a technology Wilocity developed (and subsequently trademarked). The company's whitepaper has all the nitty-gritty details, but the diagram below does a pretty good job of summing it up:

Essentially, wPCIe specifies a PCI Express switch with local and remote components that talk over a 60GHz connection. The remote components go in the DockingZone (another Wilocity trademark), which can include any number of PCIe-compatible devices or controllers. A hypothetical DockingZone might have, say, USB 3.0, eSATA, and FireWire controllers sitting alongside a graphics processor. The neat part is that, in Wilocity's words, "the switch appears as if it is co-located in a single location. Therefore, the software used to configure and manage the switch is identical to that of legacy switches/bridges." Translation: the operating system doesn't need to know there's any wireless tomfoolery going on.

Wilocity told us that wPCIe can push bits at up to 5Gbps (625MB/s), and that the spec should move "quickly" to 7Gbps (875MB/s). Assuming that doesn't account for the 8b/10b encoding used by PCI Express, you can expect PCIe transfer rates of up to 500MB/s at first, which is equivalent to two lanes of first-gen PCI Express connectivity. That's probably not enough for a proper graphics card, but as we found while reviewing Zotac's Zbox HD-ID11 nettop, an Nvidia Ion GPU hooked up over a single gen-one lane can still crank out decent frame rates in casual games at 1080p.

Of course, cheap netbooks won't be the first systems to start toting 60GHz adapters—Wilocity expects the technology to debut in high-end systems. We're told there's nothing inherently more costly about 60GHz technology, though, so support may not take long to trickle down to cheaper machines.

2009년 12월 10일 Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig Alliance) 가 현재 802.11n의 10배속에 달하는 60GHz, 7Gbps(약 900MB/s)의 무선랜 사양을 완성한 것에 기인하여 Atheros & Wilocity는 단순히 광속의 통신만을 지향하는 것이 아닌 기존의 PCIe 타입의 무선기기와 접속 용이성을 포함한 차세대 무선랜 개발에 공조하기로 했습니다.

이 차세대 무선랜은 PCIe 규격을 유지하면서 주파수 대역은 60GHz, 전송속도는 기본 5Gbps(약 625MB/s)에서 최고 7Gbps(약 875MB/s)을 내며 기존 밴드 및 현재 널리 쓰이고 있는 Wi-Fi 장비들과의 호한성과 유기적인 연동을 위해 2.5GHz & 5GHz와 스위칭이 가능하도록 할 것입니다. 아울러 노트북에 주로 쓰이는 규격인 까닭에 디스플레이, 저장장치, 외장 그래픽 프로세서와의 유기적인 연결을 감안하여 제작한다고 합니다.

주목할 만한 점은 그래픽 프로세서를 중심으로 USB 3.0, eSATA, FireWire 컨트롤러를 한데 묶는 가상의 DockingZone과 (예, Apple TV 같은 기기) wPICe가 상호 60GHz대역으로 소프트웨어를 통해 원격으로도 설정 및 관리가 가능하도록 한다는 점입니다.

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