ABI Research: UWB device shipments will surge to 1.3 billion by 2026

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ABI Research: UWB device shipments will surge to 1.3 billion by 2026 [Copy link]

According to market analyst ABI Research, despite the significant impact of Covid-19 on the mobile device market, smartphone sales and increased demand for more wearable devices, tablets and laptops have contributed to the market's solid recovery.

They further pointed out that under the influence of the epidemic, consumers continue to change their work, study and entertainment consumption habits, which has created a demand for improved smart devices and enhanced device connectivity, which has driven the growth of demand and sales of related products. While 5G connectivity has become the headline of consumer technology news, the market has also witnessed the massive adoption and rise of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology.

ABI Research said in the report that although UWB is in the early stages of its ecosystem development, it is rapidly growing into a major short-range wireless technology that can be used in a variety of devices including smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, mobile accessories and other consumer electronics.

ABI Research forecasts that shipments of UWB-enabled devices will grow from 143 million in 2020 to more than 1.3 billion by 2026.

According to them, UWB has become a secure and fine-scale ranging technology that can enable a variety of location-based user experiences that other wireless connection technologies cannot effectively support. "In 2016, UWB first gained market traction in asset management and location services. Since entering the consumer market in 2019, UWB has shown explosive growth, first attracting attention in the smartphone market." said Filomena Iovino, consumer technology research analyst at ABI Research.

Apple was one of the first companies to adopt UWB in its smart devices, adding UWB capabilities to its iPhone 11 and Watch 6 portfolio. Now UWB is present in products from Samsung, Xiaomi, and more vendors will follow suit.

“By the end of 2021, more than 190 million smartphones (14% of total shipments) will have UWB capabilities, increasing to 643 million (about 40%) by 2026. The ‘cellular’ business, led by smartphones, currently accounts for the largest component of UWB. In the UWB market and the total 1.3 billion UWB device shipments expected in 2026, ‘cellular’ will account for the largest share, reaching 59% overall,” said Iovino.

As UWB becomes a mainstream technology in most mobile devices, it will also develop in other areas such as fans, lights and smart speakers, as well as the high growth market for smart home devices such as automobiles. This highlights the expanding application scope of the UWB ecosystem.

However, ABI Research also stressed that despite the expected astonishing growth of UWB, the technology still faces many challenges, especially the relatively large size and difficult integration of UWB antennas, which will bring challenges to smaller devices such as tags, wearable devices and sensors. "Compared with other short-range technologies that they focus on replacing, the higher cost of UWB components and infrastructure may also be prohibitive. At the same time, regional differences and restrictions increase the complexity of the development and deployment of a standardized UWB ecosystem," Iovino concluded.

As a leading UWB technology player, Qorvo is making every effort to embrace the arrival of a new era.

As Jiang Xiong, sales director of Qorvo's mobile business unit in China, said at the "9th EEVIA Annual China Electronic ICT Media Forum and 2021 Industry and Technology Outlook Seminar" held in Shenzhen recently, after Apple released its AirTag in April this year, everyone has a broader understanding of UWB (Ultra Wideband).

Jiang Xiong, Sales Director of Qorvo China Mobile Business Unit

UWB stands for ultra-wideband, a technology designed for precise positioning and secure communications. Unlike GPS, which focuses on outdoor positioning, UWB focuses more on indoor positioning. In addition to being used for positioning services like AirTag finding objects, this technology can also be used in multiple scenarios such as device control, automatic identification and monitoring.

From the working principle point of view, the working method of UWB is also relatively direct. As shown in the figure, the following is an algorithm. What is expressed above is that when a radio frequency signal source sends out a signal, the receiving source will receive the signal arriving at the straight-line distance at the first time, and the signal flight distance can be calculated through the received timestamp.

"Although there are many reflections in the house, there will be mutual interference after reflection, and the signal will sometimes be enhanced after reflection, but for UWB, all reflections can be ignored because they can directly receive and distinguish the first signal to arrive." Jiang Xiong pointed out. "UWB has a calculation method to calculate which is the shortest distance to its location, and that is the signal source. Not only that, it can also calculate the angle difference through the arrival phase difference, and finally locate the relative position of the target at the receiving end through the distance and angle." Jiang Xiong continued.

From his introduction, we know that compared with other indoor positioning technologies, UWB has five major advantages:

First, the accuracy is extremely high, because it is accurate to the centimeter level. There is no positioning technology on the market that is higher than this. It is understood that UWB can locate at the centimeter level. In comparison, GPS positioning is 5 to 20 meters, and WiFi is 5 to 15 meters;

Second, the reliability is extremely high. UWB has the strongest ability to directly transmit and identify different objects and resist multipath interference.

Third, it is real-time with extremely short latency (milliseconds), which is 50 times faster than the response time of GPS. This is a very good performance.

Fourth, the implementation is relatively easy, the power consumption is relatively low, and various handheld products can be very conveniently applied;

Fifth, security, because UWB now complies with the IEEE 802.15.4z standard;

“In addition, UWB also has wide coverage, high data transmission rate, extremely high security and strong object-finding capabilities,” Jiang Xiong said.

According to reports, the coverage range of UWB can reach 25 to 250 meters, WiFi is 50 to 150 meters, and Bluetooth can only reach 15 to 100 meters; in terms of data transmission rate, UWB ultra-wideband data transmission can reach 27M bps, which is also a rarely talked about aspect, but it is extremely advantageous; as for security, taking mobile phone applications as an example, ordinary mobile phones have security units, and UWB itself also has an editing protocol, which is in line with the encrypted fields in the data packet, and can encrypt data. Customers can also combine their own characteristics to achieve a higher security level; finally, UWB's super ability to find 1,000 objects in 10 seconds is unmatched by other positioning technologies.

"UWB technology has an identification accuracy of less than 0.1 meters for 100% of objects. This shows that UWB is definitely the strongest in terms of positioning technology," Jiang Xiong emphasized.

"UWB positioning is the best for people who are doing indoor activities. When it comes to data transmission, compared with Bluetooth, UWB can achieve a transmission rate of 27M bps, so we can transmit some data in real time. But it is impossible for UWB to replace all WiFi transmission functions because WiFi has a wider bandwidth. In terms of security, UWB is currently the safest because it complies with the 4z boundary protocol and the data packet contains encrypted fields that can encrypt data. It can also be combined with the SE security unit in the mobile phone to provide a higher level of security," added Jessica, senior sales manager at Qorvo, in an interview with the media.

Jessica, Senior Sales Manager, Qorvo

After acquiring industry-leading manufacturer Decawave last year, Qorvo has also consolidated the company's moat in the UWB market and made full preparations for the company to continue to develop this market.

Jiang Xiong said that the company's UWB team has been involved in this field since 2013 and can provide chip products with excellent performance and power consumption. It is reported that in addition to products, Qorvo can also provide customers with relatively comprehensive technical, software and ecological support, which enables Qorvo to provide the best solutions to customers. At the same time, the company's products are also shipped in large quantities to multiple markets. It is understood that there are now 40 different vertical markets including mines, public security systems, warehousing, logistics and factories using Qorvo's UWB technology.

"Qorvo is working on the next generation of products with higher integration to provide better services to customers," Jiang Xiong revealed.

When talking about the future prospects of UWB applications, Jiang Xiong pointed out that the "one-touch connection" and "one-finger connection" being developed by domestic mobile phone companies are typical UWB applications. With this design, customers can easily control some household appliances in the house with a mobile phone. OPPO has made an excellent product based on Qorvo's products.

In addition, during museum exhibitions, using UWB tags to locate exhibits and play voice introductions, UWB-based enhanced payment for specific locations, UWB-based taxi searches, and some UWB-based data transmission applications will all be the main areas for UWB to develop in the future.

When talking about the cost, Jessica said that the UWB chip provided by Qorvo is a mixed signal chip, and its current price in the market is slightly higher, but Qorvo believes that its application in the future will be able to reach the scale of Bluetooth and eventually the price of Bluetooth.

She further pointed out that in Qorvo's view, the ecosystem has been established since Apple started using UWB. After Apple, Samsung, Bosch and others joined, the industry has been committed to building this ecosystem. For this reason, Qorvo believes that UWB has great potential in the future. "Now, Apple iPhone 11/12 has started using it, and Apple Watch and Homepod have used it. In other words, there are already a lot of UWB devices in the market, which is basically a sign that the market is mature now." Jessica emphasized.

"Considering that many of our customers in different fields are developing products based on UWB technology or are paying attention to this technology. So in my opinion, UWB has reached a breaking point," Jiang Xiong finally said.

Techno Systems Research's survey data also pointed out that global UWB device shipments are expected to reach more than 230 million units this year and will exceed 1.2 billion units by 2027. Smartphones are undoubtedly the largest application market for UWB technology, followed by automobiles, smart home devices, wearable devices, smart tags, and real-time positioning systems for the industrial field.

UWB related market shipment forecast (Source: Techno Systems Research)

From this point of view, an era belonging to UWB may officially begin.

dcexpert

By that time, the cost should be able to be reduced to around 10 yuan, and the power consumption should be lower as well.