Mobile & wireless communication networking equipment

	Qstarz International offers the BTQ-CK04, a Bluetooth 2.0 LCD speakerphone and car kit in one.

Early-generation UWB products rolling out; ZigBee finding niche in home automation

Wireless personal area networking (WPAN) technologies, now widely used for short-range communication and networking, are driving a growing number of product lines in Taiwan. Suppliers here offer a slew of products that adopt several WPAN technologies such as Bluetooth, Ultra-WideBand (UWB) and ZigBee.

Bluetooth is a strong player in Taiwan’s WPAN industry. It is currently the most popular technology adopted in mobile phones, laptops, desktop PCs and peripherals, car handsfree kits, digital photo frames, printers and wireless headsets. Relentless growth in the global mobile phone industry will further give the technology a boost.

Bluetooth is particularly expected to gain further ground in the medical, automotive and consumer electronic industries. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is supporting market growth by expanding the application of the technology, enhancing data transfer rate and reducing power. Bluetooth SIG is set to integrate UWB into the new Bluetooth 3.0 standard to meet rising demand for high bandwidth and digital multimedia capabilities resulting from the growing popularity of digital content. The standard is set to be released in 2009.

Low power consumption and cost are the competitive advantages of WPAN technologies and products. These benefits make them promising for portable devices and applications that require long operation times.

Bluetooth and UWB can compete on higher data transfer rates for the transmission of digital content. Bluetooth has the advantage of lower power consumption, but supports a smaller bandwidth and limited coverage. UWB’s applications at present are mostly for PC connection, with wireless USB adapters and hubs as representative products, but the technology is eyed for its fast data rate and low power consumption, especially for use in transmitting large A/V files.

Meanwhile, ZigBee is more targeted at niche applications and long-range transmission of smaller data sizes. The technology is carving its niche in home automation, building automation, industrial control, healthcare and other similar special applications. However, ZigBee has a lower data transfer rate compared with Bluetooth and UWB.

With mobile phones being the most popular application of Bluetooth technology, headsets and car handsfree kits are the leading products in Taiwan’s Bluetooth sector. USB Bluetooth dongles are also high on makers’ agenda.

USB Bluetooth dongles and Bluetooth headsets account for the majority of Qstarz International Co. Ltd’s exports. The company mainly provides GPS devices, but sees more growth potential in the Bluetooth car kit sector.

Qstarz International offers the BTQ-CK04, a Bluetooth LCD speakerphone that doubles as a car kit. It supports Bluetooth 2.0 with handsfree and headset profiles. The model provides 80hr standby time and 5hr talk time.

Qstarz International expects strong sales for small USB Bluetooth dongles. The company currently offers Class 2 USB Bluetooth dongles.

UWB is also expanding its footprint, thanks to the fixed standard and wide adoption of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Initially, the main application of UWB is wireless USB, primarily for PC connection. The first generation of products consists of wireless USB adapters and hubs.

UWB product adoption will gain speed beginning this year, driven by PC applications, according to In-Stat.

The research firm expects that starting 2009, adoption of UWB in mobile phones will take off and grow steadily until 2011.

Multimedia and high-definition applications are regarded as the driving forces of UWB. The technology, which features high-speed data transfer and low power consumption, is suitable for portable devices that transfer large A/V files. Its low power consumption also makes it a strong supplement technology to WLAN networking.

To lower production cost and support even more UWB adoption, IC suppliers need to work out an SoC that integrates RF, baseband and MAC layers.

In-Stat projects that shipments of ZigBee chipsets will surpass the 150 million unit mark in 2009. Growth will come from three application areas—home/residential automation, commercial building control/automation and industrial control.

Home automation is a fast-growing sector for ZigBee, according to Holy Stone Enterprise Co. Ltd, one of the leading component suppliers in Taiwan. ZigBee is now applied in wireless lighting controls, remote controls, wireless keyboards, wireless mice, voice-guided MP3 players and gaming joysticks. It is also used in healthcare electronic products such as patient monitors and fitness monitors that run on 868MHz, 915MHz or 2.4GHz.

According to Bandwave Technology Co. Ltd, healthcare will be the major application for ZigBee, and the company will release related products in Q4 2008. The company said that modules can be embedded into watches or other small devices to monitor the health status of children or elderly healthcare patients. Its Smart Health Body Guard SB-1 for instance, can automatically detect health condition.