Montreal, Canada, Sep. 14, 2021 – SPARK Microsystems today announced the company has joined the UWB Alliance and the FiRaTM Consortium to accelerate the development and adoption of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. SPARK Microsystems will work with both organizations to influence regulatory matters and develop international UWB technology standards.
The UWB Alliance and the FiRa Consortium work in collaboration to achieve the common goal of creating a UWB-enabled ecosystem. As a part of their joint liaison, the UWB Alliance focuses on matters arising from the promotion and safeguarding of UWB technology and advancing updates of the UWB rules in the United States and internationally whilst the FiRa Consortium focuses on UWB use cases for fine ranging and positioning and aims to certify UWB products for conformity and interoperability based on approved FiRa and IEEE 802.15.4z standards.
“The accelerated development and commercialization of UWB technology presents a massive market opportunity for low latency, low power wireless sensing and communications,” said Fares Mubarak, CEO, SPARK Microsystems. “Contributing our knowledge and expertise to both the UWB Alliance and the FiRa Consortium allows SPARK Microsystems to have the most influence on the nascent UWB technology and standards in multiple industries.”
“As UWB continues its record uptake in the consumer electronics space, this unique technology is fueling more diverse and innovative use cases, as well as establishing a vibrant eco-system,” commented Tim Harrington, Chairman of the UWB Alliance. “The much-valued technical contributions from SPARK and our other members are helping us to define how the UWB rulesets can evolve to enable these multi-radio consumer eco-systems to continue to flourish in the future.”
“We are very pleased to welcome SPARK Microsystems to the FiRa Consortium,” said Charlie Zhang, FiRa Board Chair and Senior Vice President, Engineering, Samsung Research Americas.
“SPARK’s expertise is an excellent addition to our ecosystem; we look forward to good collaboration toward the future of seamless user experiences using UWB secured fine ranging and positioning capabilities.”
The SPARK Microsystems series of low power UWB wireless transceiver ICs enable a new class of short-range wireless connectivity applications that, due to power and latency requirements, would have previously needed to be wired. These applications include gaming peripherals and AR/VR headsets, smart home devices and battery-less IoT sensors. The UWB wireless transceiver series achieves an order of magnitude better energy efficiency, latency and ranging than Bluetooth Low Energy or ZigBee at faster data rates, supporting uninterrupted data streaming as well as accurate ranging and positioning. When paired with energy harvesting technologies, SPARK’s UWB technology significantly extends the battery life of electronics and enables the battery-less operation of wireless devices such as sensors.
About SPARK Microsystems
SPARK Microsystems is a fabless semiconductor company that is leading the way towards ultra-low power wireless communications for consumer and IoT-connected devices. With its patented technologies, SPARK Microsystems is bringing to market a high-performance wireless transceiver that allows for orders of magnitude improved power consumption, latency and more accurate ranging and positioning, while providing higher data rates than competing technologies. For more information, please visit www.sparkmicro.com.
About UWB Alliance
UWB Alliance is an international non-profit organization headquartered in Washington D.C. dedicated to the promotion and growth of the ultrawideband (UWB) industry. The UWB Alliance promotes large-scale deployments of UWB technology by fostering the advancement of the regulatory environment for UWB technologies, providing a center of excellence for UWB education and coexistence, and promoting industry cooperation in the development of specifications and standards for interoperability. For more information regarding the UWB Alliance, visit www.uwballiance.org
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