At ISSCC 2010, Sony announced the development of wireless technology specifically designed to be used within future gadgets. The Millimeter-wave band used in this advancement refers to electromagnetic waves with a frequency of 30GHz to 300GHz, and wavelength between 1mm to 10mm. With their high frequency, millimeter-waves are suited to ultra high speed data transfer, while a further advantage is their ability to transfer data using only very small antennas. This could potentially replaced soldered connections one day, if a low enough cost was achieved.
This could also help reduce costs by making things more modular. If Sony wants to add a tuner to a monitor to make it a TV, with something like this they could just slap on a module that just needs connections for power and ground. Eliminating the data interconnects means simpler connections and less traces to route.
The high frequency technologies used in this system draw on Sony’s extensive expertise and years of experience in the field of wireless communications and broadcast products. Specifically, Sony has integrated highly energy efficient millimeter-wave circuits on 40nm-CMOS-LSIs (with an active footprint of just 0.13mm2 including both the transmitter and receiver), to realize high speed, 11Gbps data transfer over a distance of 14mm using antennas approximately 1mm in size. By replacing complicated wires and internal circuitry with wireless connections, this technology enables a reduction in the size and cost of the IC and other components used in electronics products, delivering advantages such as size and cost-reduction and enhanced reliability of the final product.
You have to route a lot of traces very carefully to move some data at 11Gbps. If all they have to do is take a few different sub-boards and slap them on one simple main board, they could make their electronics simpler and cheaper. Even if that is all on one board, taking a few pre-designed sections is easier than routing it all together.
The advancing functionality of today’s electronics products requires ever increasing quantities of internal data transfer. Once wired connections approach the limit of their data capacity, additional circuitry is required to facilitate larger data transfers, however this leads to the issue of increasingly complicated IC packages, intricately printed circuit boards, and larger IC sizes.
By replacing physical circuitry in electronics products with high speed wireless connections, this new data transfer technology reduces the number of wired connections and minimizes IC use, to simplify the IC package and printed circuit board. Furthermore, because the data transfer occurs without contact, this enhances the reliability of movable and detachable parts within the product.
Sony will proceed with efforts to adopt this technology in a range of electronics products, while continuing its development to meet ever-increasing data-rate requirements.
