This week, TDK Ventures, the next-generation materials and “hard-tech” venture capital arm of Japanese electronics giant TDK, announced that it has invested in San Diego 5G wireless company XCOM Labs. The investment will expedite the development of XCOM’s 5G and wireless communications solutions, which emphasize bandwidth capacity, latency reduction/elimination, and compute load balancing. XCOM is working to apply their technology to the future of work and Industry 4.0, where wireless technologies could enable smart factories, automation, off-site training, and more immersive telework experiences. The company’s technology has additional applications in telemedicine, entertainment, and even defense applications to help train and prepare military personnel.
In a statement announcing the investment, TDK noted that XCOM’s executive team, consisting of Dr. Paul Jacobs, Derek Aberle, and Matt Grob, was responsible for many of the breakthrough technologies seen in the previous 2G/3G/4G technology revolutions.
5G and wireless infrastructure are experiencing huge demand for greater expansion and rollout of enabling technologies, as current infrastructure is inadequate to support these advances. At its core, each “G” generation represents a push for greater wireless transmission speed, capacity, and overall value. To do this requires not just updates in hardware and software, but leveraging frequency spectra in either new and innovative waves, or utilizing new frequency bands entirely. One of many tradeoffs is in balancing energy, frequency, and transmission. Higher frequency – and thus energy signals – can carry more information in a shorter span of time, but decay more quickly over distance. From an infrastructure perspective, this means more transmitting “nodes” in the network are necessary to carry higher frequency signals across a given area.
XCOM is designing technology that TDK says will “change the playing field,” aiming to increase the capacity and utility of spectrum over 10x, enabling the potential promised by 5G and next generation developers to become a reality. This includes innovation to push digital transformation to the next level through extended reality (XR).
Using a globally available 60GHz millimeter wave band, they are developing a high throughput, low latency wireless system to deliver seamless virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences. What was previously limited by either bulky processing equipment needed nearby, or low throughput limited by smartphone processing, is becoming a comprehensive system that can immerse the user in a metaverse or digital world environment. This will be a leap forward in the integration of edge computing processing to provide a natural user experience.
“The XCOM team is set on continuing our tradition of excellence and innovating in the wireless space. We understand how important high throughput/low latency is for the future of compute-heavy applications and are working to deliver those capabilities to create real and positive change in our world and industry applications,” said XCOM’s Dr. Paul Jacobs. “Our XR technologies are evidence of this progress and show that seamless processing through edge computing can deliver a truly immersive and agile VR/AR system fit for business, entertainment, and more.”
“XCOM technology represents more than just an improvement in capability, but a new potential for how we work, connect, and experience life,” TDK Ventures President Nicolas Sauvage said. “Their solutions are being designed to be pervasive to our digitally transforming world and represent a future that TDK wants to see and is committed to bringing to fruition.”
TDK Ventures will work with XCOM to scale the impact of their technology, including leveraging their network connections, industry partners, and connecting XCOM to other TDK business units. TDK Ventures’ platform team additionally provides support to include early product validation, pilots, customer/channel/ecosystem access, market knowledge, operating expertise (e.g., materials, manufacturing, fabless, supply chain) and go-to-market/branding mentorship.
