Rockchip Launches Lowest Power WiFi Technology

Lowest Power WiFi, Reducing IoT Power Consumption by 85%, Equal to BT4.0 LE

FUZHOU, China, June 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --  Rockchip has announced at COMPUTEX Taipei that it has launched the world lowest power WiFi technology RKi6000 jointly developed with a third party. This technology makes WiFi power consumption equal to that of BT4.0 LE (Low Energy). The receiving power consumption is around 20mA during use, which is 85% lower than state-of-the-art WiFi devices for the Internet of Things (IoT), setting a benchmark power consumption level that should renew the standard for WiFi power consumption in IoT smart hardware globally.

The power of RKi6000 is comparable with that of Bluetooth4.0 LE and it is possible to use WiFi with coin cell batteries in IoT. The size of products can be greatly reduced and the WiFi technology can be used in more and more applications with limited sizes and currents.

As a key connectivity technology of IoT smart hardware, WiFi technology receives a lot of attention from semiconductor companies.When compared with BT/ZIGBEE standard, WiFi is accepted as the most convenient, however the high power of WiFi still prevents it from being used on portable devices with a current limit. RKi6000 can reduce the power consumption and make it equal to BT LE's inthree ways: 

Improvement of RF transceiver architecture. The architecture can greatly reduce the active power consumption of IoT smart devices during continuous data transfer. Ultra low power can be achieved both in work and standby mode. Dozens of international patents have been filed for this technology.
Adaptive dynamic power control technology. Power efficiency is optimized in different working modes and the total power consumption is reduced greatly in different application scenarios by adjusting the chip's power configuration dynamically so that better energy efficiency can be achieved.
RKi6000 can keep the device online without waking up the host processor. It can reduce the wake up time and simplify the application power control design. Since for most IoT applications, the device should be kept in sleep mode and turned back on when needed, the reduction of wake-up time further lowers the power consumption and extends battery life.

WiFi based on traditional RF architecture cannot be used extensively in IoT or wearable devices due to its problems with power consumption. With much lower power, RKi6000 will be widely applied in smart wearable devices, consumer electronics, mainstream appliances, home safety, automation systems, automobiles and medical equipment. Those smart devices can benefit from the easy network connection with standard WiFi infrastructure which can greatly reduce the cost of the application development and speed up the smart hardware commercialization.

What It Means:

Most devices rely heavily on WiFi connections that strain their power consumption. By decreasing the amount of energy needed to power a WiFi connection, devices have the capability to last far longer than previous architectures.