Can Intel Go Wireless?

Intel wants to lead the drive into a less wired world by pushing standards, drive down the cost, and make these technologies ubiquitous.

At Computex, Intel demonstrated WiGig wireless docking and simultaneous wireless charging of a laptop, smartphone, headset and tablet with a pad placed under a tabletop. The company said that it would deliver reference designs for systems that use the technology in 2016 as part of a future Core processor family known as Skylake.

WiGig trades range for speed and operates in the 60GHz spectrum, compared with 2.4- and 5.0GHz for WiFi. It can transfer data at speeds of up to 7Gbps, compared to a maximum speed of a little more than 1Gbps for 802.11ac.

WiGig can be used to stream video from a mobile device to a TV or monitor, replacing HDMI and DisplayPort cables, but is being seen as a way of carrying out networking and wireless docking. It means that you can put your laptop on your desk and it automatically connects with your monitor, keyboard and mouse, printer and other peripherals without cables.

Intel plans to make its own WiGig chips. The outfit said it will have silicon for both transmitters and receivers in production by the end of this year, and available in products in the first half of 2015. Intel also wants to push Rezence for wireless charging.

Chipzilla has added that it will contribute some of its own IP to expand the standard to support wireless charging of laptops (which requires at least 20 watts) and that Rezence will be part of a Skylake reference design by 2016. This means that the world could be wirelessly networked soon after that.

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