WiFi connections as fast as fibre available with a chip

While fibre optic connections are certainly desired by a large number of users thanks to the high speed connections that they bring with them, Japanese scientists have been developing a chip which offers record transfer speed via a wireless connection.

At this time when fibre optic roll outs are going on around the world so as to offer users greater speed and bandwidth, the cost of such infrastructure deployments to both private and public entities shouldn’t be underestimated. While most users are impatiently waiting for fibre connections to the door to provide very high speed internet connections, an alternative solution has now been presented that could change the way internet is delivered over greater areas.

A group of scientists working at the University of Osaka and component manufacturer Rohm has announced the creation of a new generation chip which offers data transfer speeds similar to that of fibre optics all though a simple wireless network connection.

Two of these chips were able to swap data at speeds of 1.5 Gb/s – a world record for a wireless solution.

To achieve this result, the chips use terahertz signals, which means electromagnetic waves situated between the light and radio waves. These chips have been developed from the tunnel effect, and advance which allows, according to the scientists, to reach speeds of around 30 Gb/s.

In comparison with current technologies, this new chip is rather small (2 x 1 cm) which is attached to a small antenna. In addition, the production costs are also very low, coming out at a few dollars per ship, compared to the tens of thousands of dollars per kilometre of fibre optic cabling.

These chips could soon be manufacturer in series, so that they can be installed in electronic devices like mobile phone, in the coming three to four years.