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The wireless sensor network market, led by ZigBee, grew ten-fold from 2007 to 2010 and exceeded 45 million annual shipments in 2011. “Strong growth is expected for 2012 and beyond as ZigBee pervades the home automation and home entertainment markets, whilst Smart Meters continue to be rolled out across the globe,” commented Peter Cooney, wireless connectivity practice director.
The total market for standards-based wireless connectivity chipsets is expected to exceed $10 billion in 2012, this includes both standalone and combo chipsets that use Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC, UWB, and ZigBee. “The market continues to develop with technologies - particularly Bluetooth and Wi-Fi - squaring up for a fight to be the dominant standard,” commented Peter Cooney, wireless connectivity practice director.
The total Bluetooth IC market (including stand alone and combo ICs) is expected to reach $4.3 billion in 2012 — an increase of 21% on 2011. Revenues are forecast to grow at a compound growth rate of over 20% to reach almost $12 billion by 2017.
Wi-Fi protocols have changed significantly over the last two to three years and almost every smartphone shipped this year will offer some form of Wi-Fi capabilities. However, a new Wi-Fi protocol will begin to dominate mobile devices soon. New market intelligence from ABI Research projects the IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi protocol will begin to conquer the existing protocols (802.11b, g, and n) in the next two to three years.
Texas Instruments Inc. (TI), leading the industry with the most complete wireless connectivity portfolio for embedded applications,today announced that its Bluetooth® v4.0 technology-based CC2560 and CC2564 wireless devices are now available in easy-to-integrate QFN packages offered by TI and its distribution partners. TI also announced the availability of additional production-ready modules based on the two devices, as well as software and tools.
With the increasing popularity and use of single-mode Bluetooth® low energy in automotive, home office, medical and health, sports and fitness, and mobile and PC accessories, Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) released its newest BLE-Stack™ 1.3 software to support continued development and enhancement of Bluetooth low energy. TI’s BLE-Stack 1.3 includes over-the-air firmware downloads (OAD), which enable updates to CC2540/1 firmware to be downloaded from a central device, such as a phone, tablet or PC onto the CC2540/1 system-on-chip (SoC) directly over the RF link.
ABI Research expects the ultra-low power wireless connectivity IC market to grow to over $2 billion annual revenues by 2016. This will be shared by a number of technologies with Bluetooth Smart and 802.15.4 being the two main markets.
Laird Technologies Inc. has released Android 2.3 Gingerbread support for its Summit 40 Series radio modules, which support dual-band 802.11n (802.11a/b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1.
Answering the growing need for smartphone and tablet applications that update seamlessly, Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) announces a truly wireless solution with a unique over-the-air-download (OTA or OAD) feature in its BLE-Stack™ 1.3 software for use with the CC2540 and CC2541 Bluetooth low energy system-on-chips (SOCs). Single-mode Bluetooth® low energy or Bluetooth Smart is increasing in popularity because it allows consumers to connect to their smartphones and tablets to automotive, home office, medical and health, sports and fitness as well as mobile and PC accessories.
The total market for open short-range wireless (SRW) technology based ICs, i.e., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, NFC, and GPS, is expected to reach almost 5 billion units in 2013 and grow to nearly 8 billion by 2018. This includes standalone wireless connectivity ICs, wireless connectivity combo ICs, and also platforms with integrated wireless connectivity.
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