Wouldn't you love to get rid of the rat's nest of cables connecting the pieces of your home entertainment system -- and cut the hassle of hooking up new audio-video components? Engineers and consumers alike have dreamed of that possibility for years, but a handful of serious efforts up until now to devise wireless consumer electronics schemes have foundered on technical shortcomings and divisive standards battles.
Now a venture capital-backed Israeli startup, Amimon, is driving the latest attempt at a cord-free home entertainment standard -- and this time it looks more likely to fly. The chipmaker's Wireless Home Digital Interface technology, or WHDI, was co-developed with a who's who of consumer electronics companies, including Hitachi, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony. The first TVs and laptops to use it should start appearing on store shelves in early 2010.
Eventually, WHDI could show up in everything from Blu-ray DVD players, set-top boxes, and gaming consoles to video projectors, camcorders, and portable audio players. Amimon expects the technology to add $20 to $40 to the cost of an electronic device at first, with prices falling rapidly as volumes increase.
What sets Amimon's WHDI apart from previous wireless A/V proposals is its speed and quality. Earlier efforts, such as the attempted WiMedia standard that built on Ultra-wideband [UWB] technology, streamed video in compressed form, which resulted in signal latency and a loss of clarity. WHDI is the first that sends digital video -- including high-definition [HD] programming -- flying around the house uncompressed at data  rates of up to 3 gigabits per second. That means there's no time lag and the images are crystal clear. The radio waves can pass through walls and have a range of about 100 feet [30.5 meters].
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Founded in 2004, Amimon is led by Yoav Nissan Cohen, a 20-year veteran of Israel's high-tech industry who previously ran Tower Semiconductor. Nissan Cohen also helped launch Saifun Semiconductor -- now a unit of Spansion -- and did stints with National Semiconductor and General Electric. A former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot with a doctorate in physics, he's convinced that Amimon could be one of the biggest success stories to come out of Israel in years. "It's the first time that an Israeli company will determine a global standard in the consumer electronics market," he says. "Sales could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars within a matter of years." (continued...)
© 2009 Business Week Online under contract with MarketWatch. All rights reserved.
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