IBM is now concerned about the spectrum shortage, where it has come up with the millimetre wave radio chip which helps to take advantage of higher frequencies. With the help of lot of engineering works they start up with more gigabit speeds and also offering better radar for pilots.IBM’s breakthrough is an integrated circuit that offers the components and antennas for a radio chip.
The transceiver which operates in a frequency which ranges from 90-94GHz is implemented as an unit tile integrating four phased array ICs and 64 dual-polarized antennas. By tiling packages next to one another on a circuit board, scalable phased arrays of large aperture can be created while maintaining uniform antenna element spacing. The hundreds for antennas attached to it allows communication for radar and imaging applications which extends over a kilometres.
The chip is made using a specialized process on Silicon Geranium, so it’s not exactly mass market at the moment, although IBM also has created a smaller 90-nanometer SiGe chip that it plans to announce as well. That will reduce the size and power consumption of the newer chips.
Before knowing about new chip you should also familiar with millimetre, wave broadband, fast, and most significant limitations. It’s power hungry, can’t go very far because the signals deteriorate when they encounter oxygen atoms and the equipment is expensive. IBM’s also pitching the technology to help improve radar on airplanes.
IBM will debut the new IC at the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit Symposium in Seattle, next Tuesday.