CMOS transceiver wins award

A high-speed, low-cost chip that facilitates short-range, multi-gigabit transfer of data has won Innovic’s International Next Big Thing Award - Innovation Excellence category.

The device was conceived by Victorian inventor Prof Stan Skafidis who is helping to make the ideal of the wireless home or office a reality.

The chip can transfer 10 times the data at one tenth the cost of existing technologies. It could download a movie to a mobile phone from a kiosk in 30 seconds and transfer it to a TV in another 30 seconds. That’s what this tiny five millimeter by five millimeter technology can do.

Joss Evans, CEO of Innovic, the not-for-profit organisation that runs the International Next Big Thing Award said the gigabit wireless transceiver on CMOS won the award based on its high level of innovation.

“The [5 mm²] gigabit wireless transceiver on CMOS had some help from the global semiconductor industry. Through NICTA, the project has received considerable in-kind support from industry partners, estimated at $45m, such is the interest in this technology," she said.

The transceiver was designed over three years, followed by fabrication and testing. Additional electronics have been used to build a transmitter and receiver that allowed the first prototype to be demonstrated in Melbourne earlier this year.