Qualcomm buys chipmaker Wilocity

Mobile devices chipmaker Qualcomm Atheros yesterday announced it had bought startup chipmaker Wilocity to help it provide a speedier, but shorter-distance wireless technology across more devices, CNet  reported.

Sunnyvale, California-based Wilocity founded in 2007, develops chips using a newer type of Wi-Fi called WiGig that runs on a relatively high radio frequency, at 60 gigahertz.

WiGig, an industry-wide standard backed by the Wi-Fi Alliance industry group, offers speeds several times faster than traditional Wi-Fi, though effective at short distances, and could therefore work well within a single room.

Due to its speedy connection though, WiGig is being considered as a potential replacement for physical cables still necessary to connect devices such as tablets or PCs to large displays or televisions.

In stating its goal as the elimination of cables in PCs by 2016, Intel pointed to WiGig as one of the potential answers, the importance of which seems to have been recognised by Qualcomm likewise.

Qualcomm executive Cormac Conroy told CNET in an interview Wednesday, that the company and its partners believed in the technology strongly.

The capabilities of Wilocity's chips allow them to undertake heavy-lifting task that take place in a small area, such as streaming 4K video from a smartphone to a television with minimal lag, or wirelessly docking a tablet to a large display, keyboard, and mouse.

Wilocity was founded in 2007 to make faster Wi-Fi chips, dubbed WiGig. It uses the 60 gigahertz spectrum to transfer data at gigabit speeds over a relatively short distance, such as between a tablet and a PC or TV in a living room.

Qualcomm plans to integrate Wi-Fi and WiGig signals into its Snapdragon mobile chips in the first half of next year, Venture Beat reported.

''Qualcomm is continually innovating and investing in leadership technologies to drive value for our customers while creating new growth opportunities for our mobile, computing and networking platforms," said Amir Faintuch, president, Qualcomm in a statement.

He said, "WiGig will play an important role in Qualcomm's strategy to address consumers' increasingly sophisticated smartphone, tablet and computing requirements to support applications - such as immediate streaming of 4K video and high throughput peer-to-peer communication to enable the next generation of social interactions between users sharing content.

''Combining multi-gigabit speeds and low energy use, WiGig technology will strengthen Qualcomm Atheros' connectivity leadership and create exciting new experiences that will accelerate the commercialization and adoption of 802.11ad technology.''