New amplifier paves way for 10Gbps wireless Web

Amplifier operates at millimeter wave frequencies to deliver fast wireless service

A professor at the University of California San Diego has invented a frequency amplifier that could be used to help deliver wireless data at 10Gbps over the span of a kilometer.

James Buckwalter, an assistant professor at UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, yesterday unveiled his silicon-based amplifier that will transmit data through millimeter wave frequencies in the 60-120GHz bands. Using these high-frequency bands will allow for vastly faster data transfers than today's Wi-Fi and WiMAX technologies, which both typically operate on the 2.5GHz band.

"We need to find a ways to transmit more information than is available at 2.5GHz," says Buckwalter, who notes that Wi-Fi home routers typically max out at around 15Mbps. "One way we can do this is to use 100GHz or millimeter wave frequency bands to get higher amounts of bandwidth and then we can transmit much faster data rates."

Buckwalter explains that using silicon transistors to amplify data signals is a key feature of his new amplifier because silicon can allow for "inexpensive integration of microwave and now perhaps millimeter wave components." This is significant, he says, because in the past millimeter wave amplifiers have relied upon more expensive semiconductor materials.

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A professor at the University of California San Diego has invented a frequency amplifier that could be used to help deliver wireless data at 10Gbps over the span of a kilometer.

James Buckwalter, an assistant professor at UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, yesterday unveiled his silicon-based amplifier that will transmit data through millimeter wave frequencies in the 60-120GHz bands. Using these high-frequency bands will allow for vastly faster data transfers than today's Wi-Fi and WiMAX technologies, which both typically operate on the 2.5GHz band.

"We need to find a ways to transmit more information than is available at 2.5GHz," says Buckwalter, who notes that Wi-Fi home routers typically max out at around 15Mbps. "One way we can do this is to use 100GHz or millimeter wave frequency bands to get higher amounts of bandwidth and then we can transmit much faster data rates."

Buckwalter explains that using silicon transistors to amplify data signals is a key feature of his new amplifier because silicon can allow for "inexpensive integration of microwave and now perhaps millimeter wave components." This is significant, he says, because in the past millimeter wave amplifiers have relied upon more expensive semiconductor materials.

The amplifier is known as the Cascaded Constructive Wave Amplifier because it is designed to allow for further amplifications along the wavelength. Buckwalter says that this works by monitoring periodic points along the wave's transmission line and providing positive feedback amplification of the wave amplitude. As the wave peaks and nulls move along the line, Buckwalter says that the amplifier's silicon transistors send back a signal to the beginning of the transmission line that increases the wave energy.

"By amplifying the signal periodically at multiple stages, the signal as it travels down the transmission line has an increase in its amplitude," he explains. "So instead of having the traditional limitation for traveling wave circuits of distributing the gain across parallel stages, we can actually get a cascaded gain."

Buckwalter publicly debuted his invention this week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

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