Report: Intel preps wireless charging

LONDON – Intel may use internally developed resonant wireless charging to improve the attractiveness of mobile offerings based on its chips such as Intel-based ultrabooks and smartphones, according to a Digitimes report that referenced unnamed sources.

The technology is expected to arrive in a few models in the second half of 2013 with Intel-based ultrabook computers that would provide the means to charge nearby Intel-based smartphones.

Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) is already providing wireless charging reference designs and has developed software for power charging control, the report said.

Wireless charging has been seen to be a highly promising application area for a number of years but it is hard to find efficient means of energy transfer and consensus on standards has been slow to build.

One organization attempting to do that is the Wireless Power Consortium which lists Fairchild, Freescale, Fulton, Huawei, MediaTek, Nokia, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments but not Intel.

Intel has been working on the technology for many years. In October 2008 Justin Rattner, CTO of Intel, wrote in his web log about the prospects of using Wireless Resonant Energy Link technology developed in Intel's research lab in Seattle to to wirelessly transmit power over several feet with "great efficiency." He specifically wrote about the possibility for using WREL to power devices such as laptop computers and mobile phones.

Intel has provided a video demonstration of its WREL, a technolog whose efficiency can be nearly independent of orientation, distance, and load over a wide range of operating conditions, Intel claims.


Related links and articles:

Intel video demo

www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com

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Digitimes article

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