New TI Chip Could Spread NFC in Smartphones

NFC, a wireless technology mostly used for mobile payments, hasn't taken off in the United States. It's available in a few phones, but banks and carriers are dickering over payment services, and phone makers such as Motorola have said they don't want to implement an expensive new feature without knowing it will be used.

Texas Instruments' new WiLink 8.0 chip could make Motorola's move to NFC much easier. WiLink 8, which plugs into TI's , combines Wi-Fi 802.11n, GPS/Glonass, NFC, Bluetooth and FM onto a single small chip using a 45nm process, dramatically reducing the space and price of NFC technology.

"Today's [NFC] controllers are really big because most of the controllers are built on old processes, not standardized for the mobile environment," said David Lacinski, strategic marketing manager for TI Wireless Connectivity Solutions. "This takes the controller out of the equation and integrates it into the silicon; it's virtually cost-free."

Phone makers will still have to include an NFC antenna, but this at least gets them part of the way.

WiLink 8.0 will come with an OMAP5 reference platform, but will "support what customers have on their boards from an OMAP perspective," Lacinski said, implying that the company would also integrate this into OMAP4 chipsets like the one in the Motorola , , and .

The WiLink chips also have some more exotic technologies in them, at least from a U.S. perspective, such as ANT+ and FM radio. The first one of those is a low-power protocol used in fitness and health care products. The other one is, well, FM radio.

"FM appears to be more interesting for use in Europe and some of the emerging countries than North America," Lacinski said.

The new chip could also improve location finding on smartphones, including indoors. By combining GPS, Glonass, and Wi-Fi with a position engine all on the same silicon, the chip's position engine can take fragmentary answers from each system and potentially come up with more useful location information.

You'll still have to wait several months to see WiLink 8 in action, though.

"We'll see products in the market during the second half of 2012," Lacinski said.