According to the announcement, both companies believe the collaboration realizes technical leadership in performance, size reduction, lower BOM and power consumption, while offering OEMs faster time to market.
Wireless charging eliminates the cable typically required to charge mobile phones, cordless appliances and so on. With a wireless charger, the battery inside any battery-powered appliance can be charged by simply placing the appliance close to a wireless power transmitter or a designated charging station. As a result, the appliance casing can be made completely sealed, even waterproof. Besides the inherent convenience it offers, wireless charging can also greatly enhance reliability, since the charging plug on the side of an appliance can suffer mechanical damage easily, or simply by someone inadvertently plugging in the wrong adapter. The underlying principle behind wireless charging is the well-known Faraday’s law of induced voltage, commonly used in motors and transformers.
Consumers are asking for easy-to-use solutions and shorter charging times for their smartphones, portable media players, digital cameras, tablets and wearables. These applications typically require 2 W to 15 W of power, and wireless charging can coexist with NFC (Near Field Communication) and Bluetooth, allowing for very creative solutions. For example, paired phones can charge each other up when placed back-to-back, after they negotiate the appropriate host and client.
For applications like headsets and wireless speakers, plugging charging cables into the tiny connectors of ever-shrinking devices is an impediment to robust design. Since Bluetooth headsets need to be sweat-proof to survive in a gym environment, wireless charging becomes an attractive feature. But the deployment of charging pads (transmitters) in the public domain requires systems to be safe and secure. Many coffee shops, airport kiosks and hotels already support these scenarios, combining NFC with wireless charging.
In automotive applications, a wireless charger is ideal for charging mobile phones and key fobs by placing them either on the dash or the center console of the car, without inconvenient wires going to the cigarette lighter socket. Moreover, since Bluetooth and Wi-fi require authentication to connect phones to car electronics, combining NFC with wireless charging can enable the user to not only charge the phone, but to automatically connect it to the car’s Wi-fi and Bluetooth networks without going through any specific setup process.
Renesas is pairing its wireless charging ICs with Panthronics’ near-field communications (NFC) readers and controllers to accelerate adoption with a broader set of customers and applications. As Renesas confirms, Panthronics NFC solutions deliver highest power and connectivity for wireless charging applications thanks to their patented sine wave driver architecture. Renesas delivers cutting-edge wireless power solutions both for the receivers used in smartphones and other applications, as well as the transmitters inside charging pads and automotive in-car applications.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with Panthronics to deliver industry-leading wireless charging paired with NFC connectivity for the explosive IoT market,” says Dr. Amit Bavisi, Vice President of Engineering, IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit at Renesas. “We believe that our combined technical excellence and differentiated IP will allow us to design turn-key, smallest and highest performance wireless power solutions, which our customers crave for their next-generation IoT endpoint products.”
“This collaboration enables Renesas’ broad range of customers and expansive partner ecosystem to directly benefit from our ground-breaking NFC solutions,” adds Mark Dickson, CMO of Panthronics. “The combination of Panthronics disruptive NFC products delivering industry-best RF performance combines perfectly with Renesas’ best-in-class wireless charging technology to leap ahead of all product solutions available today.”
Both companies are exploring further collaboration and integration opportunities with Panthronics NFC products and Renesas microcontrollers, microprocessors, analog, power, sensor and connectivity products.
www.panthronics.com | www.renesas.com
