芯片及電子產品制造商英特爾、英飛凌、德州儀器以及松下公司業已組建了一個聯盟HomeGrid論壇(HomeGrid Forum),來促進使用家居電路傳輸電影、音樂及圖片的家庭媒體網絡的發展。該組織希望盡快制定一種統一的標準,使采用該標準的芯片能以超過Gbps的速率在同軸電纜、電話線或電力線上傳輸數據。它們希望首批使用該新標準的產品將于一年后推向市場。

HomeGrid論壇成員希望制定統一的互聯方案,以此來替代諸如同軸電纜多媒體聯盟(Multimedia over Coax Alliance)、家庭電話線聯網聯盟(HomePNA Alliance)和家庭電力線聯盟(HomePlug Powerline Alliance)的所作的工作。

消費電子產品及計算機制造商一直在探討數字家庭的發展前景。但是由于這些設備制造商之間缺乏統一的互聯標準,從而阻礙了數字家庭的發展。目前,業界已經開發了使用Wi-Fi把各種家庭設備連接在一起的通用無線標準,Wi-Fi聯盟也在致力于推廣其標準。不過,有線網絡具有很大的優勢,穩定性和性能都優于無線網絡,并且目前大多數家庭都擁有必須的基礎設施構件。

這個新成立的HomeGrid論壇總裁、英特爾的Matt Theall表示:“目前的標準的確是太多,而大多數廠商希望得到一個統一的標準?！边@四家HomeGrid論壇主要成員公司稱,它們將與國際電信聯盟合作,促進、測試和致力于發展國際電信聯盟正在開發的ITU-T 標準。據悉,目前HomeGrid論壇的三大工作目標,便是強化ITU-T 標準的技術?熱蕁⒕嚀迓涫?ITU-T 標準的商用化、并且支持ITU-T 標準的產品互通性更加完善。

“ITU非常強大,這對制定一個統一的標準十分有利?！盜TU 標準組的主席,同時也是英飛凌高級標準經理Les Brown表示。

支持者也看到ITU制定的標準通常都是非常具有爭議的,比如說DSL標準?！斑@非常具有挑戰性,不過只有ITU才配做這樣的事情?！睒藴式M高級系統工程師,來自Intel的Barry O'Mahony表示。

Theall表示,目前已經有35家公司參與標準工作,包括支持電力線的DS2、Intellon和Panasonic,還有設計HPNA芯片的CopperGate公司。

HomeGrid論壇創始成員共有11家公司,另外7家成員公司分別是Aware、DS2、Pulse link、Ikanos、Sigma Designs、Westell、Gigle半導體公司。

英特爾、英飛凌、德州儀器和松下將組建該論壇的董事會,它們表示正在芯片制造商、服務提供商以及消費電子產品及個人電腦制造商中發展新成員。

翻頁查看英文原文:

Group drives Gbit home network effort

HomeGrid hopes to accelerate ITU's  work

Eleven companies officially launch a new consortium today (April 29) to accelerate work on a way to unify the fragmented world of home networking. The HomeGrid Forum hopes to speed up work on a standard to define chips that can carry data at rates up to a gigabit per second across coax, phone or power lines.

HomeGrid aims to help the International Telecommunication Union's  committee deliver a specification for physical layer and media access control chips within a year. They believe the spec could replace separate efforts by groups such as the Multimedia over Coax Alliance, the HomePNA Alliance and the HomePlug Powerline Alliance.

"We are all aware there is a fragmented wired [home networking] market today, and a number of companies would like to get to a common technology," said Matthew Theall, president of HomeGrid and a technology strategist at Intel. "This technology could be embedded in hundreds of millions of products some day," he added.

HomeGrid will host weekly technical work sessions to speed up progress on the ITU effort which conducts face-to-face meetings just once a quarter. In addition, it aims to take on marketing and certification roles to make sure the resulting standard is adopted.

"We believe today's announcement is an important step towards eliminating fragmentation in the industry and achieving the vision of a networked home," said Kurt Scherf, analyst with market watcher Parks Associates, speaking in a prepared statement.

"This is ambitious, but I think its necessary otherwise consumers might face the prospect of home networking products that not only don't interoperate but actually interfere with each other," said Les Brown, chairman of the ITU  group and a senior standards manager for Infineon.

"The ITU is a very powerful group for unifying the industry so we think we have a chance for success," Brown added.

Backers note the ITU helped settle contentious debates on standards such as DSL. "It is challenging, but if any one can do it, it's the ITU," said Barry O'Mahony, a senior staff systems engineer at Intel, working with the  group that got its start in 2006.

It's not clear whether HomeGrid or  has backing from the wide group of chip, system and service companies who drive home networking standards.

about 35 companies now participate in , said Theall of Intel. They include several powerline network players such as DS2, Intellon and Panasonic as well as CopperGate which designs chips for the HPNA standard.

HomeGrid is just starting to court members broadly. "We expect many of the  members will also join this effort," said Theall.

After the HomeGrid launch we will reach out to more people to create the momentum and critical mass we need," said Imran Hajiumusa, vice president of broadband access at Infineon Technologies North America.

HomeGrid was founded by Infineon, Intel, Panasonic and Texas Instruments. Initial members include Aware Inc., DS2, Gigle Semiconductor, Ikanos, Pulse link, Sigma Designs and Westell.

Inside the  effort

The ITU takes a piece-by-piece approach to writing standards. The  committee has nailed down many technical decisions, especially for its physical layer chip. But many issues are still outstanding, particularly in the MAC.

One of the more important decisions to date has been to target a maximum data rate of a Gbit/s as part of a proposal from the companies who founded HomeGrid. The  committee also accepted a target of supporting 400 Mbits/s on at least 99 percent of coax lines and 250 Mbits/s on 95 percent of powerline connections.

"We did not want [] to be a duplication of existing technologies, rather we wanted to position it as a next-generation with performance beyond MoCA, HomePlug and the others," said O'Mahony of Intel.

The  group has decided to use a discrete Fourier transform version of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing as its modulation scheme. In addition, it will embrace both parameterized and prioritized quality-of-service approaches.

"There's a bunch of heavy lifting still ahead," said O'Mahony.

For example the group has yet to define the number of bands it will support and which frequencies it will use on different mediums.

"We've done a fair amount of work on the PHY layer, but we have much more to do on the MAC," said Brown. "We are talking about a two-phased approach where we focus on the PHY this year and the MAC next year," he added.

Among controller issues, "really there's been no work on security yet and that's a huge hole left to fill," said O'Mahony.