Posted on Thursday, June 20 2013 @ 15:12 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
The Register
reports Intel has joined the Alliance for Wireless Power (AWP) in effort to spread technology for wireless battery charging of smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other devices.
Intel's singing from that hymn book in the canned statement (PDF) announcing its presence on the AWP's letterhead, with the veep for all things mobile client Navin Shenoy saying “In joining A4WP, we look forward to working alongside other member companies and contributing to standards that help fuel an ecosystem of innovative solutions capable of simultaneously charging a range of devices, from low-power accessories to smartphones, tablets and Ultrabooks.”
Intel's signature on the AWP's member roster makes things interesting for the rival Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), which can boast around 100 members – including the branches of Samsung tied to AWP – but lacks a major chipmaker.
While it's not hard to construe the AWP vs. WPC fight as the People's Front of Judea taking on the Judean People's Front, the presence of both Intel and Qualcom on the AWP's letterhead may be a big deal shift given mobile devices' increasing reliance on systems-on-a-chip (SoC). Device-makers looking at the WPC's Qi standard may now wonder if they can do better by using a SoC that plays nicely with AWP technology and therefore simplifies design and maybe knocks an item and/or a buck or two off the bill of materials.
