Knight Rider draws nearer
People are already asking what the ‘next big thing' in mobile might be, now that we've all got used to tablets and smartphones. There's a good chance that semiconductor company NXP will be at the centre of it, whatever it is.
The launch today of a contactless payment system by Orange and Barclaycard has once more brought NFC technology to the forefront. NXP has been championing the potential of NFC for years, but it recently launched a new platform designed to enable cars to communicate automatically with other vehicles and their surroundings - otherwise known as C2X (car-to-whatever).
This platform was developed in partnership with Australian Cohda Wireless, which makes chips that use the 802.11p wireless standard. This is a flavour of Wi-Fi that is specifically designed for automotive use, and has the greater range and signal robustness required to ensure a fast-moving object remains connected.
The main purpose of C2X right now seems to revolve around safety and traffic management. If cars are constantly communicating with each other and the cloud, they can deliver real time information about what they're up to. On a local level this can give you visibility of on-coming traffic at, for example, blind corners, and on a broader level it allows the ability anticipate and warn of traffic jams.
We spoke to NXP's global VP of automotive - Drue Freeman - and he pointed out that a real strength of NXP is bridging the analogue and digital worlds. The slide below shows some of the automotive cleverness available now, and what will start to appear from 2013. He said as little as ten percent of cars need to be equipped with this tech for the benefits to be felt.
We had to confess ignorance on the matter of 802.11p, but were sceptical that a form of Wi-Fi could possibly provide the kind of robust, seamless connectivity required for this technology to be useful. So Freeman sent us over the table below, supplied by Cohda. As you can see, the Cohda DSRC (dedicated short-range communications) provides ranges in excess of what is considered necessary.
C2X is just one of what looks set to be a broad portfolio of smartcar technologies set to transform our driving experience. NXP NFC chips are likely to be involved in syncing our mobile devices with our cars which, among other things, should help with mobile productivity. No amount of clever communications and warnings will enable us to avoid all traffic jams, but maybe when we're in them we'll be able to get some work done too.
