682 products offered by 128 vendors/makers had obtained Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) technological certification for wireless power charging as of the end of 2014, while there were only 24 products offered by eight vendors/makers passing certification by the Power Matters Alliance (PMA), according to Digitimes Research.
WPC and PMA are two of the three wireless power charging interest groups, with the other one being the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) which has not yet released certification information, Digitimes Research indicated.
Among international handset vendors, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are members of WPC, PMA and A4WP while Apple, Lenovo and Xiaomi Technology have not yet joined any of the three groups.
Among IC design houses, Integrated Device Technology, Texas Instruments and MediaTek have been the most active in R&D for wireless power charging chip solutions and are members of WPC, PMA and A4WP.
In terms of wireless power charging technology, WPC and PMA originally focused on magnetic induction while A4WP focuses on magnetic resonance. However, WPC has started developing magnetic resonance also, and in February 2014 PMA announced a technological partnership with A4WP to step into magnetic resonance.
