"Kiss connectivity" technology developed by keyssa is designed for ultra-high speed data transmission between mobile devices and networked devices. This technology supports all contemporary wired protocols, such as USB 3.0, DisplayPort, SATA and PCIe. Based on a proprietary solid-state connector, it provides low-power and high-speed data transmission through ultra-high frequency to replace mechanical connectors.
Keyssa, a California technology company, recently disclosed an industry plan called "connected world". It also received investment from large companies such as Foxconn and Samsung to announce that this action will help promote keyssa's millimeter wave technology.
Keyssa's technology is designed for ultra-high speed data transmission between mobile devices and networked devices.
If you haven't heard of keyssa, you may think it's another start-up that plans to enter the ultra-high bandwidth wireless connection market that has existed for decades but has not yet flourished - similar to wirelesshd and wigig.
However, if you look closely, you can clearly find that keyssa is not interested in wireless technology competition. Keyssa is targeting the connector market.
Keyssa has developed a low-cost low-power millimeter wave wireless chip with a working speed of up to 6gbps. More importantly, the company also has a miniature commercial contactless connection module. The modules designed by keysa, which has always focused on manufacturability, can meet the key electromagnetic and mechanical requirements in all systems.
Keyssa regards this chip as the "apple of his eye". Its mission is to replace connectors with the advantages of low cost, low power consumption and high reliability, and attract system OEMs to adopt keyssa's mobile products and other system products.
However, there is a very important question: does keysa's technology have the opportunity to compare with the connectors we are used to and tested and verified at present?
Keyssa believes that this technology is crucial in the industry's endless pursuit of speed. Keyssa pointed out that "using copper cable to manage higher speed signals, especially in equipment with smaller and smaller overall dimensions, is becoming a major engineering challenge." The company claims that system engineers have begun to look for alternative technologies for device to device connectivity, the company points out
Interestingly, keyssa found that this limitation is more obvious in internal connections. When the signals that must be sent become so fast, how do you plan to handle the board to board or the connection between the camera and the application processor?
Before going further, let's talk about Mr. Eric almgren, CEO of keysa, because he represents the human factors behind this advanced technology.
Figure 1: Eric almgren, CEO of keyssa.
Eric almgren was once one of the founders of silicon image. He was one of the few lucky engineering technology executives: he was lucky to get a second chance to use the technology he once supported to do everything right (or wrong). Now he can make a comeback in different companies.
Almgren led silicon image for 11 years. He experienced the success of HDMI in one fell swoop and knew what it would cost to win the market. He also witnessed how customers first ran in with new connection technologies.
When silicon image acquired sibeam in 2011 (when almgren was still the CEO of silicon image), almgren also witnessed how his company struggled to promote sibeam's wirelesshd technology.
Wirelesshd is a proprietary technology designed to wirelessly deliver high-definition video content to consumer electronics. It works on 7GHz channel in 60GHz UHF band. Silicon image hopes to change it into a widely accepted HDMI wireless version, but none of this has been achieved.
In October 2012, after leaving silicon image, almgren joined keyssa, a start-up founded in 2009, and served as the CEO of the company. Keyssa has developed "kiss connectivity" technology, which is based on a proprietary solid-state connector and provides low-power and high-speed data transmission using a particularly high frequency.
The above introduction raises the question: does keyssa want to pursue a market that has also been occupied by other high bandwidth wireless technologies, such as wirelesshd or IEEE 802.11ad proposed by wigig?
In response to this question, almgren answered "no!". "The only thing they have in common is the use of the 60GHz band," he said
"Keyssa uses the 60GHz band, but is optimized for short distances," he stressed This allows keyssa to provide higher bandwidth, shorter delay, smaller antenna and lower power consumption“ Our technology is a point-to-point solution, not a shared network like other technologies. "
When the goal of other wireless technologies is long-distance connection, keyssa positions its kiss connectivity as short-distance technology, so that consumers "can share videos and other files by simply touching one device to another."
Keyssa's short-range high bandwidth method "can avoid the problems of other wireless technologies." Almgren said that the inherent problems of WiFi or Bluetooth include pairing difficulties, the need to enter a password, the possibility of signal interruption or eavesdropping, and so on.
With kiss, "product designers can avoid the design frustration of wired connectors and the frustration of wireless communication to users."
Connectors are critical
First, keyssa is different from other wireless technology providers in that keyssa always focuses on "connectors".
About a decade ago, technology providers (and consumers) were still keen on the "cool" side of wireless. Now, this enthusiasm has gone forever. Wireless technology alone can no longer attract consumers or system OEMs.
Almgren's wisdom lies in transforming keyssa's technical description from wireless features to alternatives to connectors.
As keyssa explained, kiss connectivity supports all contemporary wired protocols, such as USB 3.0, DisplayPort, SATA and PCIe. In conclusion, keyssa is trying to get system OEMs to consider abandoning all ugly connectors currently integrated into their systems.
Figure 2: Tony fadell, chairman of keyssa.
Almgren recalls his first meeting with Tony fadell a few years ago. Fadell's story made him "really hit his face".
Fadell led an apple team to manage the design and production of iPods, and later founded nest. He said his team was mainly responsible for the mechanical connectors in micro systems such as the iPod. It is not easy to make the connector work in the system, he told almgren, because there are problems such as electromagnetic wave, RF interference and electrostatic discharge.
Connectors also face challenges in industrial design. When developing a beautiful, thin and miniature handheld device, the last thing designers want to deal with is the metal connectors and holes in the system.
What do you think of the connector industry?
So how does the connector industry view keyssa? David pheteplace, senior vice president of bishop & Associates, a market research company focusing on observing the electronic connector and interconnection market, put forward a favorable view: "in view of the function and performance of this product, keyssa's commitment to exploring the connector market is a very correct strategy. The connector is designed to connect circuits, just like this product. "
He believes that the factors that make the commercialization of keyssa technology feasible are:
• keyssa's products support contactless transmission of high data volume (up to 6GB / s)
• as I / O products, there must be no physical holes in the shell (to seal the equipment, such as smart phones)
• the physical space occupied by the product on the PCB is smaller than that of the standard connector
• the product supports standard digital transfer protocols such as USB and HDMI
But will the connector supplier be integrated with keyssa? Pheteplace believes that "with some exceptions, this technology is not attractive enough for most connection manufacturers. When it starts to gain market share, you may see different reactions. "
Lessons learned
Looking back on silicon image, almgren remembers that customers have been plagued by issues such as power consumption, cost and support for multiple protocols.
Steve Venuti, vice president of keyssa and former president of HDMI licensing, told us that when he was at silicon image, he learned how to look at the problems caused by complex wired and wireless technologies from a system perspective.
The specification content about connection is only part of the solution. Testing speed, transmission capability, and reproducibility on end products are completely different things“ I realized the importance that technology can bring high yield to our customers. " Venuti said.
The next step is to test the terminal products to ensure compatibility, almgren said. "Now, we are applying everything we have learned from HDMI to keyssa's business and making it better."
Why did it take so long?
Keyssa was founded in 2009. Its original name was waveconnex. The company made full use of the research results of Frank Chang, President of Jiaotong University, in the high-speed wireless Laboratory of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His goal is to create low-cost electronic connection methods so that system designers can end their struggle with traditional mechanical connectors.
Keyssa recently released the wireless transceiver and receiver chip kss104m and promised to launch a practical connection module called kss104m-cw soon.
However, keyssa's link technology actually dates back to 2011. So, it makes people wonder: what has keyssa been doing over the years?
Almgren said that keyssa took so long to get to this step, mainly because "we have always focused on 'manufacturability'.". Keyssa hopes that this connectivity solution can be easily mass manufactured.
Figure 3: Kiss connectivity technology architecture.
Kss104m is a 3x3mm integrated module, which supports a variety of protocols, DSP, RF and built-in antenna. The backplane is made of materials specially designed for EM channel management.
Almgren pointed out that the system realized by millimeter wave non-contact technology can make the power consumption of each connector less than 100MW, but it brings great challenges in EMI, RFI and ESD.
In addition, keyssa must ensure that its technology supports all industry standards. But it is also difficult to do this "without software overhead", almgren added.
Therefore, over the past few years, most of the company's resources have been used outside of wireless chip design. Keyssa's design selection and engineering technology cover materials, waveguides, connection structures, specific EMI structures, air gaps and structural shielding, etc.
In addition to designing wireless chips, almgren said, "we must do all the [material and mechanical] science so that two chips - a transceiver and a receiver, while maintaining temperature and condition neutrality, can make the connection technology achieve low power consumption and high reliability."
Patrick reutens, keyssa's chief legal counsel, said that this prompted keyssa to develop "in-depth technology involving the implementation of its non-contact technology in order to achieve manufacturability and mass production." What is the result? Reutens said, "a wide range of patent portfolios (more than 250 patent applications have been applied cumulatively, and more than 100 issued and recognized patents around the world) cover system level implementations (including materials, waveguides, connection architectures and connector structures), production tests and use cases."
About to face a hard battle?
Despite the manufacturability expertise, keyssa's kisses is still bound to fight a hard battle.
According to bishop & Associates analyst pheteplace, the biggest challenge for kiss connectivity is "persuading cautious large OEMs not to use traditional standard connectors for design." "Keyssa needs to make its products accepted by the entire electronics industry and become a practical plug and play technology (think about USB when it was first enabled)," he said
Almgren acknowledges that "for decades, engineers have successfully used mechanical connectors and connectors for spring pins." However, he believes that there are several key trends that are gradually attracting engineers and product designers to adopt other solutions.
One is speed. Everyone wants to be faster. In his view, "the limitation of copper cable on high-speed signal is emerging rapidly." He said that the use of metal in the industry has always been good, but with the reduction of overall size, it becomes more and more difficult to manage these higher speed signals with copper cable.
Curiously, he also saw the potential of kiss in internal connection.
How will future data centers or autonomous driving vehicles handle the load of big data transmission? Which connection scheme can process the raw data transmitted from the CMOS image sensor to the central sensor fusion chip quickly? At present, the fragile and expensive flexible cables carrying these signals may not be competent.
And signal interference
At higher speeds, the signal radiated by the metal connector may interfere with other signals (mostly WiFi). He explained, "Intel has written a white paper on this subject. They found that the signal radiated by the USB 3.0 signal transmitted on the metal will directly interfere with the 2.4GHz WiFi signal. "
Keyssa did not disclose which OEM products planned to integrate kiss connectivity. But inviting Foxconn to join keyssa's "connect the world" program means that Foxconn may be interested in manufacturing its modules. However, it is unclear whether Samsung will consider using keyssa's wireless connector in its smartphone.
Keyssa's recently released kss104m chip "will be in subminiature 3 × 3mm package "and manufactured by TSMC's 65nm process technology. Almgren solution
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