Camas, Washington-based Sharp Electronics Corp is licensing its infra-red communication technology for short-range wireless communication, DASK, Digital implementation for Amplitude Shift Keying. The technology provides analogue hardware compatibility with the industry standard established by the IrDA, Infra-red Data Association, last summer and existing analogue devices such as the Sharp Wizard and Apple Computer Inc Newton products. However, to benefit from the Sharp’s digital technology, manufacturers must also license the association’s standard, based on Hewlett-Packard Co’s technology, chosen over Sharp’s and a specification put forward by General Magic Corp. Sharp says licensees of its technology can wirelessly transfer data to and from such devices as printers, modems, facsimile machines, personal computers, automatic teller machines, personal organisers and Personal Digital Assistants. In addition to supporting analogue Amplitude Shift Keying and the new industry standard, Sharp’s technology features strong immunity to broadband noise including interference from fluorescent and tungsten lamps. Sharp says its implementation is simple and low-cost and easily integrated into application specific integrated circuit designs. A licence has a one-time cost of $5,000, for which licensees will receive a complete set of technical documentation with implementation information for the technology including infra-red transmitter and receiver circuits, modulator and demodulator circuits for Amplitude Shift Keying, parts list and an association compatibility guide. The Infrared Data Association, of Walnut Creek, California, has ratified both hardware and software specifications. It supplies non-members with the software specification for a $500 fee. The association claims that its hardware specification is cheap to implement and simple: components should cost between $1.5 and $4.50 and needs no proprietary software; it comprises an encoder-decoder that interfaces to a universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter and a transducer. The association aims to certify products of members, or manufacturers that build to the standard. Members are mainly personal computer manufacturers, chip makers and telecommunications companies.
