This is the first year that I spent four days and walked the entire area of the convention. I thought to myself what was the best thing at CES? Most products are just evolutions of what we already know. Bigger TVs, higher resolution, more 3D etc. None of these are really innovative or have the potential to be a disruptive technology.
Today, the last day of CES, I visited a booth that probably very little press has visited. Just as CES was closing I saw the muRata booth. muRata is a Japanese company that makes capacitors and inductors. They aren’t a consumer electronics company, but rather a supplier of parts that are found in most consumer electronics. Pretty much everything they had was fairly normal, but then I saw that they had a system for the wireless transmission of uncompressed HDTV. The system that they demonstrated operated at a 60 Ghz frequency with a 4 Ghz bandwidth. This is incredible. Essentially this means you can transmit what you transmit through HDMI today, wirelessly. The cost for these modules are estimated at between $100-$150. That puts it outside the range of normal consumer grade electronics, and muRata hopes for adoption in high end televisions with price falling over time.
What makes this technology exciting is not the application in video. TV is a simple example of what this technology can do. What is exciting is this is the first application of millimeter wave technology (think microwaves but even smaller) in consumer electronics. In the past this technology has been too costly except for military applications. Just as another military technology, GPS, revolutionized electronics in the 1990s and the 2000s, this could have the potential the revolutionize all electronics.
The applications are limitless. Consumers all wish that everything that has a wire, not have one. The main reason this isn’t the case is because its hard to get huge amounts of data across wireless links due to limited bandwidth. With this millimeter wave technology everything in our house that uses a wire to send data can be made wireless. TV signals, audio signals, home networking etc. Imagine a house where your TV only has a power cord, your computer, monitors, printers, everything you own only has a power cord. All signals are transmitted through the air with no loss in quality.
I predict within two decades this will be the norm. Investors should be listening. I guarantee that there is no press coverage of this technology, as it’s not very flashy and its not by a company which is a household name. It is worth mentioning the company doesn’t even have published details on its website about this technology. They have been developing it quietly to avoid competition until its ready for market.
I guess if I have to coin a phrase to describe this technology: Millimeter Wave Wireless? Anyone in marketing want to come up with a catchier name?
Random Stuff (Mostly Circuits) 