In briefings in late December, SiBeam said Vizio would use its chips in both TVs and Blu-ray players. The startup claimed the U.S. TV makers move was a sign its technology had moved beyond the stage of use in adapters and into embedded consumer products, leading a pack of competitors in wireless video.
Vizio (Irvine, Calif.) will use in LCD TVs a second-generation chip set from SiBeam that consumes about half the power of its initial silicon and sports several new features. It is based on a subset of a specification in the works by the ad hoc WirelessHD group, a consortium of top consumer electronics companies working with SiBeam.
The startup has also announced it will license its baseband technology to other chip makers starting in late 2010.
SiBeam said several other big consumer electronics companies will show at CES TVs and Blu-ray players using the new chip set. However, it was not able to provide details of any other design wins before the opening of the event.
Although Vizio is not announcing Blu-ray players with SiBeams technology, the chip startup said it would show such products in its private suite at CES. A press statement from SiBeam rushed out a day in advance of a planned January 5 release did not address the apparent last minute change in Vizios plans.
"By incorporating WirelessHD into a range of new products, Vizio will be among the first to introduce wireless solutions to the mainstream market said Matthew McRae, vice president of products for Vizio, speaking in a press statement issued late on January 3, "Working together with SiBEAM, were thrilled to introduce WirelessHD-based products to our customers who want a complete, high quality wireless entertainment experience with easier and faster setup," he added.
OEMs are expected to experiment with a variety of approaches at CES and beyond until the market decides on a standard, a process that could take years. At least three other groups of companies are vying to supply chips that will send high definition video around the digital home.
The Wireless Gigabit Alliance, backed by many of todays top Wi-Fi chip makers, announced in December it will complete before April a 60 GHz spec supporting wireless versions of DisplayPort, HDMI, PCI Express and USB. It will run at up to 7 Gbits/second at the physical layer and be available in products in 2011.
Earlier in December, the WHDI Consortium announced it has completed a spec for a second generation of the 5 GHz technology from startup Amimon. It promises to carry high definition video up to 100 feet and through multiple walls at maximum data rates up to 3 Gbits/second using a 40 MHz channel. The 60 GHz approaches are typically limited to about 10 meters with limited penetration through walls.
Separately, companies including ProVision Communications, Qualcomm and Quantenna have versions of the current 802.11n spec with multiple antennas targeting similar uses.
The heated competition "is a sign of a vibrant market," said Craig Mathias, principal of market watcher Farpoint Group (Ashland, Mass.). "The really interesting debates [about which wireless video technology to use in the home] are just starting," he added.
No longer expensive, hot and noisy
SiBeam had about ten design wins for its first-generation chips, mainly in wireless adapters and so-called two-box TVs where the 60 GHz technology linked separate tuner boxes and flat-panel displays. By shrinking the chips from 90 to 65 nm technology, SiBeam was able to cut power consumption nearly in half and add features that enabled use in integrated TVs and Blu-ray drives.
Unlike the initial chips, the latest components do not need fans or large heat sinks, said John LeMoncheck, chief executive of SiBeam. The new chips will be in production by April and could enable adapters costing less than $200.
"Initially all the wireless options were too expensive, too hot and required fans that were noisy," said John Marshall, a SiBeam executive who serves as president of the WirelessHD group. "When you see Vizio and others with [wireless] embedded [in] TVs and Blu-ray devices--thats the hallmark that this is real," he added.
The second-generation SiBeam chips, announced in October, sport a subset of the next-generation WirelessHD features.
The chips now support HDCP 2.0 content protection to enable streaming between devices from different vendors. They also enable a tagging scheme for stereo 3-D content based on a method in HDMI 1.4 for tracking left and right eye data. In addition, they support the HDMI 1.4 capability for handling back channel audio.
The new chips are limited to the 7 Gbit/second physical layer (4 Gbit/s application layer) data rate of the initial silicon. The new WirelessHD spec will support up to 28 Gbits/s at the physical layer and 10 Gbits/s at the app layer, including a Gbit/s data channel.
LeMoncheck said SiBeam will support those data rates in a third-generation chip set in the works. Those chips will also support 4K high def displays and power consumption of "a few hundred milliWatts," he said.
The next-generation WirelessHD spec should be complete in March, said Marshall. It bonds four 7 Gbit/s channels to reach its 28 Gbit/s maximum data rate.
Separately, SiBeam said it will license its baseband technology starting in the second half of 2010 to other chip makers who want to make WirelessHD chips. The license includes the RF interface to the baseband device and SiBeams beam-steering technology.
The startup will not license its RF technology. "Thats really the core competency of the company," said LeMoncheck.
SiBeam has closed one unannounced licensing deal to date. Chip makers in the WirelessHD group include Broadcom, Intel, NEC, Panasonic, Toshiba and Zoran.