Breakthrough wireless transceiver transmits data 24 times faster than 5G connections, reaching blazing 15 gigabytes per second — Researchers demo invention that uses silicon chip to directly send and receive analog signals from digital data

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have developed a transceiver that works in the 140 GHz range and can transmit data at up to 120 Gbps, that's about 15 gigabytes per second. By comparison, the fastest commercially available wireless technologies are theoretically limited to 30 Gbps (Wi-Fi 7) and 5 Gbps (5G mmWave). According to UC Irvine News, these new speeds could match most fiber optic cables used in data centers and other commercial applications, usually around at 100 Gbps. The team published their findings in two papers — the “bits-to-antenna” transmitter and the “antenna-to-bits” receiver — on the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

“The Federal Communications Commission and 6G standards bodies are looking at the 100-gigahertz spectrum as the new frontier,” lead author Zisong Wang told the university publication. “But as such speeds, conventional transmitters that create signals using digital-to-analog converters are incredibly complex and power-hungry, and face what we call a DAC bottleneck.” The team replaced the DAC with three in-sync sub-transmitters, which only required 230 milliwatts to operate.

By comparison, a DAC that can keep up with 120 Gbps would consume several watts of power, making it unsuitable for smartphone and other mobile device use. “If we stuck to traditional methods, the battery life of next-generation devices would vanish in minutes,” UC Irvine Nanoscale Communication Integrated Circuits Labs director Payam Heydari said. “Our group’s answer is a transceiver that leapfrogs over current limitations by performing complex calculations in the analog domain, rather than the power-hungry digital domain.”

Aside from its efficiency, the researchers said that the silicon is fabricated on 22nm node, using fully depleted silicon-on-insulator technology, which is so much easier to manufacture than cutting edge 2nm and 18A nodes from TSMC and Samsung. This could make it so much easier and cost-efficient to mass produce, encourage quick adoption of this in consumer devices. Moreover, the group also said that their new technology is a suitable alternative to the miles and miles of cabling that data centers require, allowing them to reduce their set-up and operating costs.

However, this technology is not without its challenges. Current 5G mmWave technology, which can go up to 71 GHz, has a range of about 300 meters, so you can expect this to have an even smaller radius. So, unless we see new innovations that could extend the reach of this high-speed wireless technology, we may see a future where our cities are dotted with high-speed cell sites.

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