Mediatek Combines All Three Wireless Charging Standards Into One ASIC

[Guest]

Mediatek announces multi-mode MT3188 ASIC that will implement all three wireless charging standards: Qi, PMA and Rezence.

Mediatek Combines All Three Wireless Charging Standards Into One ASIC : Read more

 

[cknobman]

Any info on availability?

 

[back_by_demand]

I already said ages ago that the different standards of wireless charging will be irrelevant when hardware vendors simply support them all, just like how multiformat DVD writers ignored DVD+R or DVD-R. Way to go for the consumer, let the wireless tech firms compete to keep prices down whilst the hardware vendors give everyone everything.

 

[WPC-Fan]

In case you want to know the status of the market I offer the following: The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge phones support Qi and PMA standards (Powermat is one of the 65 or so companies in the Power Matters Alliance), not Rezence. Rezence technology requires that receivers (e.g., phones) be placed directly above the transmitter coil, not anywhere on or "near" the table surface, although there can be as much as about 2" Z-distance (vertical distance) from the transmitter antenna . PMA and A4WP have announced their intent to merge, but they have not yet merged and the result of that merger is unclear (One standard? Backward-compatible?, Name, technology?...) Because of "royalty stacking" it is not cost-effective to support 3 separate standards in either a receiver or transmitter: a $100 DVD/Blu-ray player might absorb that cost structure, but a $29.00 transmitter cannot. Qi announced a resonant (larger Z-distance) extension to their spec, it was demonstrated at CES in January 15. X,Y charging area is not a function of Rezence or resonant technology--it is a result of the transmitter antenna design. Qi already does and PMA could support larger X-Y charging areas. There are no Rezence products on the market today, and no transmitter spec--so no way to build, test or register a Rezence transmitter.

 

[Calvin Huang]

Different standards hamper competition. In the case of blank DVD media, if there had only been a single standard, there'd still be just as many blank media makers competing on price and quality.

But in the case of wireless charging, you still have many devices that can only take advantage of one or two standards, meaning that there's fewer manufacturers for end users to choose from if their handset only supports Qi.