Infrared: Wave of Future for Computer Communications? : Technology: Irvine company is banking on its new chip.
Transmitting infrared signals is nothing new for officials at Irvine Sensors Corp. Most have been at it for years now--for example, every time they change TV channels using a remote control.
Soon, though, such commonplace infrared waves may link computers with each other and with printers and other devices.
Major computer makers, such as Compaq and IBM, recently agreed on a standard method for such infrared transmission, and Irvine Sensors has produced a chip it thinks will be a major help in its conversion from a spy satellite research company into a consumer electronics manufacturer.
“We’re looking at something that could be so prevalent, it will be on every schoolchild’s desk,” said Irvine Sensor’s Myles Suer. If his company’s low-power chip--called SIRComm--captures a decent share of the anticipated market, it could mean tens of millions of dollars in revenue over the next several years.
Not exactly a modest aim for a 14-year-old company that hasn’t made an annual profit since it went public in 1982. What’s more, Irvine Sensors had been making rosy forecasts for several years now about an earlier “breakthrough” product--a high-density memory chip that is only now beginning production.
Irvine Sensors is one of several manufacturers scrambling to supply the infrared transceivers that some industry analysts expect will begin to replace, by next year, the cables that connect personal computers with printers, keyboards and other devices.
Industry officials generally believe about a third of the nation’s 96 million households have a personal computer, although a recent survey suggested the proportion of households is closer to 27%.
Because infrared waves have a higher frequency than radio waves, infrared isn’t likely to replace either radio, cable or telephone wires for communicating over distances longer than several feet away.
But infrared will make it easier for digital devices to talk with each other, particularly products made by different companies. Instead of plugging a PC into a printer, users with an infrared-equipped computer would be able to point it at another infrared-equipped device, as if using a TV remote control. Infrared should also make it easier for users to swap information between personal computers, cellular phones, pagers and even digital watches that would be able to store phone numbers, business cards and short memos.
“The idea that you can go anywhere with a mobile device and not have to worry about whether you’ll be able to plug in, that’s very exciting,” said Suer, marketing director at Irvine Sensors. “The usage can be impromptu, because the device can be ready (to receive signals) all the time.”
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Whiz-bang though it sounds, about 75 manufacturers are currently working to develop infrared data transfer devices, or to integrate those devices on their machines.
Those companies--including market leaders Motorola, Intel Corp., IBM, Apple Computer and Compaq Computer Corp.--joined an association formed by Hewlett-Packard Co. last year to develop common methods for the transfer of data via infrared. Many of those companies plan to introduce infrared equipment on the computers and printers they will display at this fall’s consumer electronics shows, said a Hewlett-Packard spokesman.
Some products already include earlier forms of infrared data transfer, such as the personal digital assistants made by Apple and AST Research Inc., though most of these machines do not yet meet the new standard set by the Infrared Data Assn.
Irvine Sensors is not the only company chasing this potentially lucrative market, however. Rivals like Crystal Semiconductor in Austin, Tex., are many times bigger in terms of revenue, and have more experience selling electronic components in the commercial market.
With wholesale prices for the infrared assemblies expected to be about $5, profits will depend on marketing efforts as much as on technological advantage, analysts said.
“The market will look at these as a black box. It doesn’t really matter what an individual company makes as long as it fits and it works, and it’s compliant” with the new standard, said Ken Jacobsen, vice president of marketing for Connexus Inc., a consulting firm in Fremont that helped organize the trade group.
With the components’ standards already agreed upon, the technical knowledge of a single firm can “only go so far,” Jacobsen said, no matter how advanced its products.
Yet even if infrared lags behind other technologies, such as radio data transmission, infrared interfaces will still likely be added to most machines, according to several analysts.
“It’s so cheap, it will be a giveaway,” said David Scott Lewis, president of Cellsys, a Van Nuys company developing products for radio networks that would link computers over longer distances than infrared.
Shorter than radio signals, infrared light waves lie just past the red end of the visible spectrum of colors. Television remote controls using infrared signals to change channels were introduced about 15 years ago, and electronic stores carry the parts needed to send and receive a few infrared signals.
But using infrared light to flip a TV on and off, or to change channels, is much simpler than transmitting data from a computer.
Computers store information, such as a memo or a list of phone numbers, in a complex sequence of signals. To send or receive a document via this new method, those signals must be translated into infrared light, then retranslated to data by the receiving unit. Irvine Sensors’ chips are designed to smooth the retranslation process.
Irvine Sensors gained its expertise with infrared after it won military research and development contracts in the 1980s, including projects that were part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. The company first studied infrared during research meant to help orbiting satellites identify enemy missiles by spotting their heat signatures.
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The military work also led the company to design stacks of high-density memory chips to store computerized information in rockets and in other environments too demanding for standard memory systems, such as floppy disks. It also won similar contracts from NASA.
Last month, Irvine Sensors began delivery of the first memory chip stacks built for it at an IBM factory in Vermont. The shipments will give Irvine Sensors its first commercial manufacturing revenue, said John J. Stuart Jr., the company’s chief financial officer.
Together, he said, the infrared chips and the memory chips are the beginning of the end of Irvine Sensor’s reliance on defense contracts.
“There are a lot of little bits and corners that we’ve explored,” he said. “Now we’re looking at what we know . . . that has the most immediate commercial applications.”
Increased revenue can’t come too soon for the company, which lost $1.5 million for the fiscal year that ended in October, 1993. The company, with 45 employees at its Costa Mesa headquarters and about 25 more at the Vermont facility, has had revenue of about $4 million annually in recent years.
The losses have not appeared to deter stockholders, who perhaps are cheered by the company’s technical prowess and its contracts with IBM. From a low of 47 cents in 1992, the company’s stock is now trading between $7 to $8. Its stock climbed to a high of $10 in the third quarter of 1993.
That spike in the stock price was linked to market expectations of revenue from IBM’s Vermont production, said Lorraine Maxfield, a vice president for research with Paulson Investment Co. Inc. in Portland, Ore.
Despite its reputation for strong research, Irvine Sensors must now hope that it has guessed correctly about future demand for its chips, she said.
“Is (the infrared chip) just another weird military toy, or does it have serious commercial uses?” Maxfield asked. “They really do have some hard science there. They just have to show the market.”
Steve Andler, director of marketing for AST Research Inc.’s mobile computing division, said many companies like Irvine Sensors pay attention whenever standards are adopted. The challenge for those companies, he said, is balancing their technical know-how with the cost concerns of buyers.
“There’s no way to predict whether the standard you emerge with is the best standard, (because) what you’re dealing with is competitors trying to cooperate,” he said.
AST in Irvine will probably begin selling notebook computers that meet the new standard around next January, Andler said, assuming that other companies who are not members of the association--along with association members--actually bring the products they have developed to market.
“We’re participating because we think (the Infrared Data Assn. standard) is a valid standard . . . But if the printer people don’t go with it, if the fax people don’t go with it, then it won’t catch on no matter how good it is” from a technical point of view, he said.
AST also sells a personal digital assistant, called the Gridpad, which includes infrared data transmission, though it doesn’t yet meet the new standard. AST will probably update the Gridpads to the new standards as well, Andler said.
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Coping with existing machines that do not meet the new infrared standard is a strategy that at least one of Irvine Sensors’ competitors is pursuing. Crystal Semiconductor plans to introduce chips that can handle signals from most existing devices as well as those that are compatible with association standards. Even when the new standard becomes commonplace, consumers who own existing infrared machines will still hope to make use of them, he said.
Crystal officials think that even if the new standard wins out, it will take several years to be adopted, according to spokesman Wayne Alvarez. “You’re not going to sell everybody a new telephone just so they can have infrared on it,” he said.
In the meantime, Alvarez said, he expects products probably will be introduced, perhaps with his company’s chips, to allow such new peripherals to communicate with existing personal computers.
Irvine Sensors may also go after that dual-use market, officials there said, depending on the demands of vendors.
“You want to have the smallest (infrared) chip, so the cost (to the manufacturer) of fitting them into the product goes down,” said Irvine Sensors’ Suer. “You want to have the best, for the lowest cost.”
Linking Up Via Infrared
Irvine Sensors’ SIRComm chip allows laptop computers and other portables to transfer data to stationary computers, printers and modems within one meter via infrared light. How it works:
1. User commands laptop to transmit data
2. Data is converted to infrared light pulses
3. Detector in desktop computer picks up infrared pulses
4. Chip eliminates signal impurities and converts light pulses into data. Process also works in reverse for transmitting desktop files to laptop.
Other applications:
* Sending laptop files to a stationary printer
* Transmitting files to another laptop
* Sending telephone numbers stored in a cellular phone to a desktop computer
Source: Irvine Sensors; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times
