60GHz wireless mesh chipset for backhaul and wireless access points
Date: 25/05/2016
There is availability of unlicensed wireless communications frequency band from 57 to 64 GHz in USA and Canada and 59 to 66 Gigahertz in Japan called V-Band, which can be utilised for high-speed wireless local area mesh networks. This frequency band provides some advantages such as high level of immunity to interference, security and also spectrum can be reused in dense networks. This bandwidth is well utilised in satellite to satellite communication.
The wireless semiconductor IC vendor Broadcom targets this spectrum by launching first 60GHz wireless mesh (60G WiMesh) chipset solution designed for wireless infrastructure applications including mobile backhaul and wireless access points. 60 gigahertz wiremesh is employed by service providers to get bigger bandwidth at lower TCO compared to traditional wireless backhaul.
The CMOS chipset consists of a BCM20130 baseband SoC and a BCM20138 RF transceiver chip. A technology called steerable beamforming is used to provide “last-mile problem” for wireless infrastructure.
Baseband SoC connects to multiple RF transceiver chips and uses large phased array antennae to extend data transmission range without using high gain fixed antennae. By using custom time division duplex (TDD) protocol, this chipset allows long range point-to-multipoint links with link distances between nodes up to hundreds of meters.
Broadcom claims its 60G WiMesh allows the formation of a self-organizing, community-based wireless mesh network in the 60GHz spectrum, which minimizes equipment and infrastructure costs in mobile backhaul application.
To know more about the use of 60 GHz in backhaul networks read the paper titled " Millimeter-Wave Radios in Backhaul Networks" at the URL: http://www.cicusa.com/dox/publication_mmw_radios_in_backhaul.pdf
