For the developers of wireless technology the key questions are: What should we be putting in the mix? What connections do people want?
At NXP Semiconductors the problem is divided into two parts. The first is: What is needed pretty soon? NXP calls those features: High attach rate connectivity. The second part is: What will be needed a little further out? NXP calls those features: Low attach rate connectivity.
“There is high attach rate connectivity which means that, in less than the next five years it will be in more than 60 per cent of phones and that includes GPS, Bluetooth, FM, USB, and NFC”, explains Mark Cetto, Executive Vice President for the Mobile and Personal business unit at NXP, “then there's low attach rate connectivity which means it will be in less than 30 per cent of phones in the next five years and that includes WiFi, mobile TV, and wireless USB.”
Isn’t WiFi going to happen in phones faster than that? “Next year out of 1.2 billion phones made we expect 10 per cent to have WiFi”, replies Cetto, “that’s over 100 million phones. And that's bigger than the PC market for WiFi. By 2012 WiFi will be in 30 per cent of phones. Wimax is even further away.”
“UWB will be early for attach because you need something to transfer content”, adds Cetto.
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