1. July 2008
Project: IEEE P Working Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs)
Submission Title: Some THz System Issues
Date Submitted: 3 July, 2008
Source: Rick Roberts Company: Intel Corporation
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Abstract: This contribution presents some desirable system performance issues
Purpose: for discussion
Notice: This document has been prepared to assist the IEEE P It is offered as a basis for discussion and is not binding on the contributing individual(s) or organization(s). The material in this document is subject to change in form and content after further study. The contributor(s) reserve(s) the right to add, amend or withdraw material contained herein.
Release: The contributor acknowledges and accepts that this contribution becomes the property of IEEE and may be made publicly available by P
Rick Roberts, Intel

2. What will it take to get industry excited about THz?
July 2008
What will it take to get industry excited about THz?
The purpose of this document is to stimulate discussion and does not represent consensus of the THz IG. The opinions are those of the author, are somewhat arbitrary, and are offered without supporting argument.
Rick Roberts, Intel

3. What will it take to get industry excited about THz?
July 2008
What will it take to get industry excited about THz?
THz will be exciting if and when …
THz offers wireless bit rates unmatched by any other wireless technologies
Bit rate sells … historically there has been interest in wireless technology that offers more throughput (even at short ranges).
Costs are comparable to existing technologies
The market wants more for the same cost. Going 10x faster captures the market, but it doesn’t allow charging 10x more.
Power/bit is less than existing technology
Going 10x faster has to be done with basically the same battery used by the 1x technology.
Rick Roberts, Intel

4. doc.: IEEE 802.15-<doc#>
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doc.: IEEE <doc#>
July 2008
So what might make a winning solution?
Distance: LOS ~1 meter
Bit Rates: 20 to 50+ Gbps
Cost: comparable to Bluetooth
Power consumption: comparable to Bluetooth
Rick Roberts, Intel
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5. Bit Rate progression for various wireless standards
July 2008
Bit Rate progression for various wireless standards 2G 3G
802.16
802.11a,b,g
UWB WPAN
60 GHz WPAN
THz WPAN??
0.01
0.1
1.0
10.0
100
1000
10 000
Bit rate (bps)
Rick Roberts, Intel

6. July 2008
Terahertz has the potential to deliver multi-gigabits at short distances (Ref thz).
Illustrative Example
50 Gbps
10 Gbps
0.22 m
0.5 m
Link budget example (line-of-sight)
TX radiation intensity: 1 mW/steradian
RX detector sensitivity: 1 pW (assumed measured in 1 MHz)
Excess Atten per meter: 0.1 dB
Rick Roberts, Intel

7. But … Why THz and not near IR1?
July 2008
But …
Why THz and not near IR1?
1Forin, D.M., et. al., “On field test of a Wavelength Division Multiplexing Free Space Optics Transmission at very high bit rates’, 9th ICT, June, 2007 (where NIR FSO rates of 40 Gbps are reported)
1 THz
Why should industry invest in multi-Gbps THz as opposed to multi-Gbps near-IR?
lowest cost?
- easier to generate?
better performance?
lower intrinsic terrestrial noise?
higher bit rates, less loss, less power?
We need a compelling argument!
Ref:
Rick Roberts, Intel

8. July 2008
In traditional radio one can postulate that there is a relationship between cost, data rate and operating frequency … but does bandgap generation of the operating frequency disrupt this model?
Below we assume that the data rate is 1% of the operating frequency (i.e. the higher the operating frequency, the more the bandwidth and hence higher the data rate.
electronics
photonics
Cost
NIF
Freq
(Rate)
1 GHz
10 Mbps
10 GHz
100 Mbps
100 GHz
1 Gbps
1 THz
10 Gbps
10 THz
100 Gbps
100 THz
1 Tbps
Rick Roberts, Intel