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Wireless USB and UWB Bluetooth can Co-exist

By Sophia Mayengbam

Certified Wireless universal serial bus (W-USB) and ultrawideband (UWB) Bluetooth offer differing opportunities for vendors aiming at mass markets for devices using short-range connectivity. This topic on which application protocols that will run over WiMedia solutions is a hotly debated and contested in the short range connectivity market. A recent study by ABI Research has cleared the cloud and said that that there will be room for both.

"Startups in this market are moving to all-CMOS implementations in order to drive down the cost of devices and stimulate volume growth. Unfortunately the result is that they need to realize volume shipments within a small window of time, since the margins per chip are extremely low. In essence, UWB vendors need to secure a vehicle to mass market and both Bluetooth and USB hold the key to that door in the form of cellular handsets and the PC peripheral markets, respectively," said ABI’s principal analyst Stuart Carlaw.

According to Carlaw W-USB will enable start-up IC vendors to carve out significant niches for themselves. Vendors of W-USB will crash in aggressively as soon as the technology hit the handset market.

According to the study, "Ultrawideband: WiMedia, DS-UWB, or CWave?," the time when USB hit the market will coincide with Bluetooth ratification of the high data rate standard. But ABI assures that both the technologies would have room to carve their niches, especially in recognition of the ability of WiMedia to support multiple application protocols on the same IC.

Carlaw concludes that "W-USB will enable start-up IC vendors to carve out significant niches for themselves. Broad-line IC vendors will crash in as UWB hits the handset market with a vengeance, a development which will coincide with Bluetooth ratification of the high data rate standard. There will be room for both, especially in recognition of the ability of WiMedia to support multiple application protocols on the same IC."

ABI said that W-USB is still new but has entered the market and commercial product launches are imminent. Bluetooth over WiMedia is still two or three years away.

The Bluetooth market realized 317 million unit shipments of ICs in 2005 and is set to reach over 500 million in 2006. But the USB market realizes an installed base in the billions of ports. This pattern of size and timing clearly illustrates that things are in the balance, the research firm observes.


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