Intel seeks to unwire, unhinge the whole world

KICKING Pat Gelsinger closed up IDF today with the final keynote on the subject of Intel's R&D efforts in the wireless domain. As he mentioned, today's wireless networks can struggle under load, which was why it took most of the presentation to download a couple of spams using Intel's funky wireless network here in the San Jose Convention Center.

The press release that wirelessly arrived on my desktop just before the keynote started said Pat said "Over the next decade, the majority of the world will communicate wirelessly,". I didn't hear him say that, but the guy does talk fast. Or maybe he said it as I was cussing my laptop.

Anyhow, Pat showed a couple of ways of improving of improving wireless networks that Intel is working on. Paying homage to Tesla and showing a replica of Marconi's first radio, Gelsinger heralded what he labeled the Renaissance of Radio, which he said would be a "fundamental part of the digital tapestry of the future".

Gelsinger admitted that his own strand of the tapestry would be to get an Intel product touching every human being on the planet all day long before he himself retired. He said this in connection with name-dropping Kofi Annan the UN General Secretary with whom Pat had been hanging out at the wifi and emerging markets conference in Boston earlier this year.

Annan suggested then that wirelessness could help developing countries, "leapfrog generations of telecommunications technology and infrastructure and empower their people." Indeed, Gelsinger said he wanted to eliminate copper completely.

But this goal of getting an Intel product on every human is some challenge. And I'm not talking Africa. Here in San Jose I've only wandered around the town twice. And so far a full dozen locals have said the equivalent of, "can you spare any change gov." And that's in the richest country in the world. Will these guys go wireless before Gelsinger retires? I guess there is the possibility that The US government might implant a chip in every citizen here as part of The War Against Terror and Intel could land that contract. But I'm musing - back to the plot.

Gelsinger calls his wireless strategy "Radio Free Intel". One scheme to improve the bandwidth of wireless networks uses the startling tactic of having multiple transmitters and receivers. (MIMO - multiple input, multiple output) Pat demonstrated this technology as we learned also that using four transmit and receive devices at each end improves the reliability by a factor of 16.

Gelsinger suggested that ubiquitous wireless communication would be deployed through industry standards and "powered by Intel silicon and technology building blocks".

Gelsinger outlined that way Intel had developed radio components using its 0.18-micron digital CMOS process. He said that not only would future networks be better with more bandwidth and greater reliability, they'd also be cheaper.

The developments are all fuelled by Moore's Law, he said. Ever-increasing processing power means that things that might only be imagined today become possible tomorrow. He said the goal was to "fundamentally rearchitect the radio".

"That's what the radio renaissance is all about," he beamed. µ

[Can Pat G explain why we can't get Radio 5 Live satisfactorily in Harrow, Paul? Ed.]