WiGig and VESA Team Up for Wireless DisplayPort

Anyone who has ever set up an IT monitoring station or a living room entertainment system knows that cables can be a nuisance. Luckily, hope is on the way: The WiGig Alliance and Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) are partnering to create wireless DisplayPort, which will allow users to connect high-definition display and audio systems without the use of cables.

This new technology, aimed at consumers and IT professionals, will allow users to connect devices such as PCs, handhelds, monitors, projectors and TVs without the use of wires. WiGig’s 60 GHz technology offers considerably more bandwidth than traditional 802.11n Wi-Fi, and provides bi-directional I/O capabilities to support the DisplayPort v1.2 feature set. This allows the same high-definition quality as a standard DisplayPort cord. WiGig and VESA are currently partnering to develop a certification program.

The WiGig Alliance has completed the 1.0 A/V and I/O protocol adaptation layer (PAL) specifications, which will be published early next year. The A/V PAL (WiGig Display Extension) supports wireless transmission of audio visual data, while the WiGig I/O PALs (WiGig Bus Extension and WiGig Serial Extension) define high-performance wireless implementations of widely used computer interfaces over 60 GHz. Together, these PALs enable multi-gigabit wireless connectivity between any two devices.

Wireless DisplayPort technology is expected to create a whole new class of interoperable wireless products, with the quality and performance of traditionally wired interfaces. We eagerly await the certification program, and look forward to creating a DisplayPort test for developers of new wireless display devices.