Berkeley Wireless Research Center - Past, Present and Future

Robert W. Brodersen

The Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC) had its origins in the InfoPad project which completed in early 1997. InfoPad was a large interdisciplinary effort, which had a goal of implementing a complete system for wireless access of multimedia data from a high bandwidth wired infrastructure. A system approach was taken in this investigation, which attempted to optimize all aspects of the design from the user interface to the low power design of the terminal hardware, which uncovered a need to deal with the issues of project management and intergroup communications. Building on what was learned in InfoPad, the BWRC was formed to investigate the present and future capabilities of implementing single chip wireless systems in advanced CMOS technology.