13 Feb 2012

TI WiLink 8.0 Five-In-One Wireless Connectivity

Wireless connectivity often involves the use of several different radios. Take a typical mobile phone these days; it may incorporate radios for the different mobile phone technologies, 2G, 3G and now 4G. In addition to this it is likely to have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GNSS (e.g. GPS) and also NFC.

To address this market, Texas Instruments, TI has introduced a new family of chips termed their WiLink™ 8.0 products.

This chipset family is a set of 45-nanometer single-chip solutions that integrate up to five different radios - Wi-Fi, GNSS, NFC, Bluetooth and FM transmit/receive applications.

The WiLink 8.0 architecture supports various combinations of these different technologies. It allows for customized solutions enabling manufacturers to differentiate their offerings from those of others, thereby meeting particular market needs.

Each chip variant comes in a compact WSP package that can be mounted directly on a PCB, and includes all required RF front ends, a complete power management system, and comprehensive coexistence mechanisms.

Having a single chipset offering provides a number of advantages for the manufacturer. When compared to some more traditional multi-chip offerings, the five-radio WiLink 8.0 chip offers a 60% cost reduction, 45% decrease in size and 30% lower power consumption at a system level.

“With annual shipments of more than 3 billion connected mobile devices expected by 2015*, manufacturers demand semiconductor solutions that not only fuel the best user experiences, but scale to address distinct product platforms. One size does not fit all: Applications have different size, power consumption and performance requirements,” said Mark Hung, Research Director, Gartner. “Innovations in functional integration, power reduction, and scalable offerings will shorten time to market and allow manufacturers to shape future on-the-go connections.”

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