New Broadcom NFC chips slash power consumption

Now that Google has gotten the major credit card players to get on board with Google Wallet, NFC just might be reaching its tipping point. Wireless chip maker Broadcom certainly hopes so, and it’s got a brand new range of NFC chips that it hopes will pique the interest of phone and tablet OEMs.

The freshly-unveiled BCM2079x range offers some eyebrow-raising improvements over Broadcom‘s last-gen chips. For starters, the company has moved to a 40 nanometer process and the overall surface area of the chips has been reduced by 40% — and that’s a big bonus for manufacturers looking for ways to conserve real estate inside their devices. Broadcom has also reduced the number of components used in the BCM2079x chips by 40%.

Most impressive, however, is how much more efficient the new chips are. Broadcom states that they use 90% less power than its previous NFC hardware. That lessens the load on your phone or tablet, but they can still facilitate transactions even when your device’s battery is totally drained thanks to Broadcom’s “field power harvesting” kung-fu.

Broadcom’s press release doesn’t mention any details about pricing for the new chips, but that might not matter much to manufacturers anyway. With big names (including just about every major wireless carrier) lining up behind NFC initiatives like Google Wallet and Isis, consumer interest is bound to start picking up — and once one smartphone manufacturer starts bundling NFC by default the rest will no doubt follow suit.

And don’t forget that Microsoft has demonstrated tap-to-share on Windows 8, which means PC manufacturers will be integrating NFC tech, too.

via BGR

Source: http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/new-broadcom-nfc-chips-slash-power-consumption-20110927/

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