New chips from Texas Instruments to support multi-mode wireless charging.

Texas Instruments announced that they have been developing a chip that allows multi-mode wireless charging solutions, TI also assures that the devices equipped with the wireless charging chips should be available by the end of this year.

Texas Instruments said that their supporting chips will allow wireless charging on current and future version of Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) Qi standard and Power Matters Alliance (PMA) specifications.

The Qi specification states that a compatible device for wireless charging should be on a surface area of at least 70mm by 20mm via magnetic induction. A transmitter coil and a receiver coil will be used to transmit power. This is done using the recently announced bq51050B single-chip wireless power receiver with integrated charger and bq500410A 3-coil coil transmitter.

The plans are already made to develop products to allow support for Alliance for Wireless Power magnetic resonance’s specification, whose primary focus is on advancing spatial freedom in wireless power which takes a different approach to wireless charging. The A4WP group has members from electronic companies which includes Samsung, Qualcomm and others which will further research on this type of wireless charging.

As of now, Sami Kiriaki, senior vice president of Texas Instruments power management said,”We are shipping wireless power circuits to most major handset makers. And those companies continue to develop phones that support WPC’s Qi, which is currently the most mature and accessible design standard.”

In regards to A4WP, he added,””With A4WP and PMA entering the wireless power space, we naturally expect a need for multi-protocol solutions, and are prepared to address this need”.

This is a feature that many end users will really appreciate, not only that, but chip makers are making faster and more efficient processors in one corner, energy efficient flash memory in another and wireless charging which will increase user’s appreciation to mobile technology, without worrying about running out of power or being stuck with a power brick while using a device.