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Good morning and good afternoon and good evening
to everybody from around the world joining us today.
My name is Mike Harmon,
I'm the Director of Marketing at NuCurrent
and today I'm once again joined by my esteemed colleague
and Senior Field Applications Engineer, Jason Luzinski
for a topic that is clearly a popular one,
what we call To Qi, or Not To Qi.
I'd like to take a minute to address
why I think this topic is so popular
and why NuCurrent is a really good resource to address it.
Wireless power and wireless charging
means different things to different people.
This is an emerging and high growth industry
with a lot of different technologies
and techniques and terminology and so on.
So, for someone walking into this
or even someone who's spent
a little bit of time with it
it can be pretty confusing
and that's where NuCurrent comes in.
We've been driving this industry for over a decade
and we've launched more product categories
into mass production than anyone in the world.
And we've developed a global reputation
for technology innovation with over 150 patents,
granted (indistinct) many major contributions
to global standards bodies
like the WPC and AirFuel and NFC.
We've developed a center of excellence
with over 50 engineers representing RF mechanical,
electrical, and software disciplines
all serving major challenges in wireless power.
And we do so in a way that
we aim to be easy to work with and customer centric,
which has qualified us to be among other things
and an NXP Gold Partner.
And ultimately we're driven to be
the world's go-to resource for wireless power,
which is why we put on programs
like the ones that we have today.
As we get started into the meat of this,
we're really gonna dig into wireless power
over the next hour
and before we do
we ought to review some important concepts
excuse me, and terminology.
So first on the left-hand side of the screen,
we're gonna take a quick peak at transfer methods
and the different types of methods of power transfer
that are gonna be applicable
for the conversation today.
The first is low frequency,
which is operating at 110 to 220 kilohertz
via magnetic induction.
And so Qi, which is, you know,
the most well-known standard and method of power transfer
is regarded as a low-frequency method.
So we wanna make sure everybody understands that.
Also Apple's new MagSafe protocol is a low frequency
at around 360 kilohertz.
Moving on to NFC
which is a relatively new transfer method
for wireless power operates at 13.56 megahertz
and employs magnetic resonance.
Similarly high-frequency using magnetic resonance
is at 6.78 megahertz.
We've got a high frequency solution as well
that tends to map to what AirFuel has done
as well as NuCurrent
through our NuEva Development Platform.
The next transfer method we refer to as a hybrid
which is really sort of application specific
but it employs both low frequency and high frequency.
So inductive and NFC for kitchen appliances
and the cordless kitchen through the Ki standard.
And then lastly, the RF method of transfer
which operates around 915 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz
using radio frequency power transfer.
And so these methods are gonna come into play
as we go through the different product examples
that we have.
But before we jump into those,
there are some definitions and some terminology
that I would like to have Jason walk us through
so that everybody's aware of these terms
as we talk about them
through the products that we'd go through.
So Jason, can you walk us through
the concepts of magnetic induction
and magnetic resonance for the audience?
Yeah, sure.
So magnetic induction
is what we coined low-frequency technologies
as we are operating like an air transformer
where we are relying on coupling
to deliver majority of the efficiency
as we're trying to harness as many of the flux lines
or the magnetic field lines
going from the transmitter to the receiver.
Magnetic resonance is a blend of a magnetic induction
but it also has a little bit of more
RF components attached to it
such as energy storing items
such as a tuning network
that allow us to utilize and store energy
to not have to rely on coupling as much.
Magnetic resonance technologies
are in the high frequency range of the NFC
or 6, 7, 8, 13.56 megahertz.
The next definition we are going to define
is going to be antenna and coil.
So we are gonna be talking about
our RF wireless power technologies
which rely on electromagnetic fields
as opposed to just magnetic fields.
So antenna will relate to
something like a Bluetooth antenna,
something that is able to harness
the field similar to the RF technologies
of 915 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz,
and the coil will relate to the inductor
that we use for wireless power.
The third definition we're gonna cover
is coupling and mutual inductance.
So this is related to the magnetic technologies.
Essentially coupling is the ability of a receiver
to capture a percentage of the magnetic flux
that is created by a transmitter.
This is usually on a scale from zero to one
where one is you're capturing all of the fields
and zero is capturing your none of the fields.
Mutual inductance is the interaction
between your receiver and transmitter coil.
So essentially you have windings on both sides
that are creating an inductance,
the transmitter creates a field
that generates a voltage on the receiver windings
and that receiver winding actually,
when you generate that voltage creates a current
which inherently has an effect back on the transmitter.
So, by understanding that value,
you can kind of estimate the amount of power
you're able to transfer over a certain area.
Third item that we are going to define
is foreign object detection.
This is kind of an industry standard term where
we're talking about
as you're transferring power
from a transmitter to a receiver
and someone places let's say
a coin or a key into the field,
that is considered a foreign object,
something that shouldn't be there.
And we wanna be cognizant of these items
because they cause safety issues
and degrade performance of the system.
The next term is charging infrastructure.
This is related to the global standards
that we have out currently,
that is related to AirFuel to Qi to Ki
and basically in terms of what is currently available
the global leader in charging infrastructure is Qi.
You know, all the pads that you see
laying around the tables to charge your iPhone,
or your Samsung phone, you know,
those are related to the Qi charging infrastructure.
And there's lots of great companies
that are integrating these things into public spaces,
so that as you walk around,
you don't need to bring your charger anymore.
you can just place it down and be able to charge,
And the last term that we are going to define
is proprietary solution or let's say closed ecosystem.
All of these technologies
can be developed into a proprietary solution
for a specific customer.
Now, if we talk about a larger ecosystem, such as Qi
that is more charging infrastructure.
So we want to create that separation between the two
to ensure that you understand
in certain situations where, you know,
you really don't care about utilizing,
for example, the Qi standards,
but you want to be able to create your own ecosystem
within a family of products,
that's how we delineate the two.
Jason thanks for running through that.
The next slide here is just
one of the things that really helps us focus.
The session that we have today
with some really useful questions
and coming from outside the industry,
this was one of the things that
really helped develop my own understanding
of how to map solutions to products.
And there are two real breakthroughs I think
in having these questions.
The first is that
we've got these five really smart questions
that help quickly eliminate certain options
and shine a light
on what might be the best solution candidates.
And then the next part about this is that
based on the nature of the product,
whether it's industrial design
or its use case or the power levels,
some questions are better asked first
in this process than others.
So we actually give ourselves
the flexibility to do that.
And as we go through the products that we have today
we are gonna see that we approach all of these questions
but we sometimes do them in different orders
based on what we know about that product.
So Jason, let's go through these questions
and talk about the rationale for why they matter.
So why would someone care about this first question?
What is the size of the product
and size of the antenna required
when it comes to wireless power?
So, this is one of the questions
that I like to ask is because
the size of the product will automatically dictate
the maximum size of the receiver core.
This will right away eliminate
certain wireless power technologies
due to the need for specific resistance
and coupling characteristics
to hit necessary thermal
and user experience specifications.
Great, so moving on to question two,
what is the coil-to-coil distance
and how many receivers need to be charged?
So, wireless power requires
appropriate mutual inductance
which is a function
of the inductance of the transmitter receiver and coupler.
If the charge distance
is greater than four to five millimeters,
or requires a larger XY offset,
it may be necessary to move to a high frequency technology
as these do not rely on coupling
as heavily as low frequency technologies.
With this in mind,
it is possible to eliminate certain tech paths
based on the unique attributes of the product.
Additionally, if there's a desire
to charge multiple devices on a singular pad,
high-frequency and NFC is usually the desired path
due to the ability to operate under low coupling conditions.
Great, so the first two
are really about size and antenna related,
the third one says,
does the product need data transfer capabilities
greater than 10 kbps?
What's up with that?
So, wireless power technologies
have certain data transfer capabilities.
Low frequency technology such as Qi
was originally designed to be solely for power
and the low frequency of operation limits
the total data transfer through but
about two kilobits a second
from the receiver to the transmitter
and on the order of bits
from the transmitter to the receiver.
NFC comes from a data background
and with its higher frequency of operation
at about 13.56 megahertz,
allows up to 848 kilobits a second throughput.
High frequency also supports in band communication
up to about 10 kilobits a second.
So, if that is a key requirement of a system,
this question can be used
to eliminate certain technologies.
All of these technologies
can potentially use auto band communication
such as BLE, or ZigBee or a similar scheme,
but this usually increases
the cost and complexity of the system.
Great, so the next question,
do you need this product to be interoperable
with existing infrastructure such as Qi?
This is an easy elimination question.
As of right now, there are only
three viable charging infrastructure standards,
Qi, NFC, and Ki.
So if your product requires
the use of an existing Qi charging pads,
or wishes to use NFC data infrastructure,
you can easily remove certain technology.
Perfect and then the last one,
what is the power level required
to power or charge the device?
So power level is usually
one of the first questions you can ask
to eliminate certain technologies.
If the powers required is greater than three watts,
you can immediately remove NFC and RF.
However, if the power requirements
is less than three watts, you know,
you may need to start with a different question
and to kind of touch on these five questions,
the order that I asked them in
is based off my previous experience
being in the industry for six, seven years now
and applying these questions
to the different use cases of products
that we see coming in.
Wireless power is an interesting blend
of mechanical, electrical, RF engineering,
in addition to helping shape the industrial design
and user experience of a product.
So depending on the product that you're looking at
you may have a different approach
of how you ask these questions
for a project that you're looking at.
However, as we go through the presentation,
I'm gonna give you an insight
kind of how I approach this,
but I urge everyone to look at the questions
and understand what is really key and important
for your product and the experience
that you're trying to bring your end customers.
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