Qualcomm Inc., a creator of mobile central processing units (CPU), announced that it has bought Wilocity in order to improve the performance of its processors.
While neither company has revealed details on the cost of the deal, it has been suggested that Qualcomm acquired the WiGig company for $300 million, which is still only an estimate, according to Empire State Tribune.
"WiGig will play an important role in Qualcomm's strategy to address consumers' increasingly sophisticated smartphone, tablet and computing requirements to support applications - such as immediate streaming of 4K video and high throughout peer-to-peer communication to enable the next generation of social interactions between users sharing content," said Amir Faintuch, president of Qualcomm.
Wilocity was founded in 2007 and is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company is among many that have proposed ways to use WiGig for wireless performance; some entities have recommended using it to replace wires and send video between devices in the same room. Faintuch said this move can use 4K to transfer multiple video streams, while Wi-Fi has the ability to only transfer one stream, the Wall Street Journal reported.
"If you are a leader in Wi-Fi you have to have WiGig," he said. "If you don't have it in time, you have a problem."
WiGig, which works in a 60 gigahertz frequency band, is estimated to send data three to four times faster than the fastest version of Wi-Fi, which works at both 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz.
Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said the deal will give Qualcomm a primary position in WiGig, "given Wilocity has been shipping in devices for six months," adding, however, that it will still be competing with Intel and Broadcom.
Qualcomm mentioned it would sell some of the WiGig technology through the Snapdragon 810 processor, Empire State Tribune reported.
"As a result, the next generation of smartphones and tablets will offer exciting new streaming, synching and storage capabilities," the company said.
Faintuch did not state when devices using WiGi-enabled chips will be commercially available. However, he added that the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group, is scheduled to give specifications for WiGig in the first half of 2015.
