Wireless communication is a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure, yet no existing technology can simultaneously deliver long range, high data rates, ultrawide bandwidth, and energy efficiency. Short-range protocols such as UWB achieve high speed but cannot reach long distances, while long-range standards such as LoRa offer excellent reach but remain fundamentally limited to kilobit-per-second data rates due to the restricted tuning speed of CMOS local oscillators. As global data demands surge across IoT, industrial monitoring, logistics, and smart-infrastructure applications, this capability gap is becoming increasingly limiting.
LoRaSpin aims to close this gap by translating recent breakthroughs in spintronic nano-oscillators—developed within the ERC Advanced Grant TOPSPIN—into a new class of long-range, high-data-rate CSS communication technology. Vortex-based STNOs and mutually synchronized SHNO arrays offer uniquely fast, wideband, and energy-efficient frequency modulation, enabling chirp rates and bandwidths far beyond what CMOS can achieve. Preliminary results already demonstrate orders-of-magnitude faster CSS transmission than commercial LoRa.
The primary objective of LoRaSpin is to build and validate a tabletop demonstrator that showcases the performance potential of STNO/SHNO-based chirp spread spectrum communication. Alongside this, the project will benchmark the technology, evaluate market and end-user needs, shape the IPR landscape, and prepare a pathway toward a future CMOS-integrated communication block.
By delivering compelling evidence of a spintronic alternative to conventional wireless local oscillators, LoRaSpin aims to unlock a new generation of long-range, high-rate, energy-efficient communication systems with broad industrial and societal impact.
