NICTA’s GiFi chip wins international innovation excellence award

The gigabit wireless (GiFi) chip developed by NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence, has won the highly-competitive Innovic Next Big Thing Award for innovation excellence. The entry was one of 25 award finalists selected from hundreds of applications from 18 different countries.

"I’m thrilled to receive this award," said NICTA’s gigabit wireless project leader Professor Stan Skafidas. "I share it with a dedicated team of 15 talented NICTA researchers and industry collaborators who have worked tirelessly on the development and testing of the GiFi chip over the last four years." The first public demonstration of a prototype system using the 60 GHz GiFi chip technology was held in February this year.

Joss Evans CEO of Innovic, the not-for-profit organisation that runs the international Next Big Thing Award, said the GiFi technology prevailed due to its high level of innovation: "The winners this year represent the best of the best new Australian and international innovations in the vital areas of medicine, water, recycling, communications and technology."

The GiFi chip delivers short-range multi-gigabit data transfer in an indoor environment. It is a complete wireless system on a single integrated circuit that provides around 10 times the bandwidth at one-tenth the cost of existing technologies.

"Winning this award is great news for NICTA and for our talented gigabit wireless project team and signals a promising future for ICT innovation in Australia," said NICTA’s Acting CEO Dr Phil Robertson.