NFC wireless charging is becoming increasingly popular for portable and wearable devices such as earbuds, stylus, smart watches, activity monitoring wristbands, smart rings and smart glasses. NFC wireless charging can be implemented with a small antenna at a low bill-of-materials cost, and the charging circuit supports data communication between the charger and the charged device.
Panthronics' reference design uses the company’s PTX100W NFC Poller to achieve what it claims is the industry’s best wireless charging performance. The reference design’s circuit includes Renesas Synergy MCU on the poller (charger) and on the Listener (device) sides to dynamically manage the charging protocol.
Panthronics is now supplying the reference design’s software development kit (SDK) pre-integrated with the Renesas Synergy platform which will enable developers working with a Synergy platform MCU to use the Panthronics SDK out-of-the-box, eliminating the software integration element of the development process and accelerating time-to-market.
The reference design is a complete system solution, providing hardware and software for both the PTX100W-based poller and the listener (device). The design provides a ready-made template for wireless charging, which means that the remaining design task for the manufacturer is simply to test and validate the operation of the charger’s and device’s antennas.
Markus Vomfelde, MCU Business Development Manager of Renesas, said, "A handful of the world’s biggest OEMs have proved NFC wireless charging is successful in wearable and small portable devices. The time is now right for NFC standards-based wireless charging to enter the mainstream market in consumer, medical and industrial devices. The mass-market Synergy platform MCUs are already very widely used in these markets. Now Panthronics is enabling mainstream OEMs to take advantage of this valuable technology more quickly and more easily when they base their charger designs on a Synergy MCU."
Panthronics supports the new reference design with hardware schematics and Gerber files for both the poller and listener circuits, and separate SDKs for the poller and listener. The SDKs include NFC protocol software, and firmware for controlling charging operations.
