Qorvo Acquires Decawave as Ultra-Wideband Momentum Continues

Understandably, the news cycle in recent weeks has been dominated by the devastating impact of COVID-19 across the globe. The hope, of course, is that the impact of COVID-19 will be very short-lived and that people will be able to return to work, school, and normality as swiftly as possible. However, the last month or so has also seen a number of critical announcements in the wireless connectivity space that are worth bringing to attention. Many of these provide insight into how the future of short-range wireless technologies is likely to shape up over the next five years. Key among these is Qorvo’s acquisition of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) chipset vendor Decawave for US$400 million.

On February 24, 2020, Qorvo completed its acquisition of Decawave. Decawave is a Dublin, Ireland based company founded in 2007 that has shipped more than 8 million Ultra-Wideband (UWB) chipsets across more than 40 different vertical markets including Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and automotive. The acquisition adds to the growing momentum for UWB over the last 12 months as well as wider consolidation in the wireless chipset market—in March, Silicon Labs also acquired the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi assets of Redpine Signals in order to strengthen its Internet of Things (IoT) platform strategy and accelerate its roadmap for Wi-Fi 6 chipsets.

Though UWB is still relatively early in its wider ecosystem development, the technology has built significant momentum in recent months. In August 2019, the Fine Ranging (FiRa) Consortium was launched with a mission to expand the UWB ecosystem. Key sponsor members include Decawave, NXP, HID Global, Assa Abbloy, Samsung, and Bosch, while contributors include the likes of Sony, Xiaomi, OPPO, Hyundai, Tile, and Denso, among many others. In September 2019, NXP introduced its all-in-one UWB SR100T solution combining the technology with a secure element and Near-Field Communication (NFC) in order to target mobile devices. In November 2019, NXP announced another UWB chip targeting automotive keyless entry applications. In February 2020, Renesas Electronics and 3db Access also announced a collaborative effort to bring UWB to the market, while later that month the FiRa Consortium expanded its membership to include Allegion, Decawave, TSINGOAL, Humatics, and OPPO. However, arguably the biggest news to date was Apple’s decision to develop and utilize its own UWB technology in its iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max devices. ABI Research estimates that well over 70 million iPhones have already shipped with the technology, with Android devices likely to follow later this year as chipset availability increases. Though Apple is only currently utilizing it for enhanced Airdrop applications, the company is heavily rumored to be introducing its own Tile competitor called “AirTags” that may leverage UWB, alongside a “CarKey” application that could leverage either NFC or UWB within their devices to enable automotive keyless entry.

Sweet spots for UWB technology are likely to be in several areas. Currently, the technology is used extensively within high accuracy RTLS applications, particularly for high-value asset tracking; safety applications; personnel tracking; moving equipment such as Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), forklifts, and robotics; and security and access control within industrial and healthcare applications. The FiRa Consortium has positioned the technology to predominantly target hands-free access control, location-based services, and peer-to-peer applications. Today, asset tracking within RTLS deployments is the largest market (beyond iPhones), while shorter term opportunities are likely to be found within access control and keyless entry applications. For example, in the automotive space, NXP has demonstrated UWB capabilities with Volkswagen to leverage the technology for hands-free vehicle unlocking, automated trailer hitch activation, in-cabin passenger detection, and other unique capabilities such as gesture recognition. The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC)’s Digital Key 2.0 was completed at the end of 2019 and leverages NFC for secure vehicle access. However, the CCC is also working on developing Digital Key 3.0, a specification that combines Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and UWB to enable passive keyless access and secure accurate positioning. This will allow users to leave their phone in their bag or pocket when unlocking or starting a vehicle, as well as providing additional location-aware features such as user authentication and customization. The next generation of BMW’s digital key will also support UWB, while Jaguar has leveraged the technology in its E-PACE, I-PACE, Range Rover, and Land Rover Discovery, claiming that at the time they were the only vehicles immune to keyless entry attacks thanks to leveraging the secure capabilities of UWB.

Another key market for UWB is likely to be within access control. At CES 2020, Assa Abbloy, a leader in access solutions, demonstrated secure hands-free access control using UWB technology. Another FiRa member, Allegion, specializes in residential and commercial locks, steel door frames, and other security products. In addition to the opportunity within enterprise and industrial applications for UWB tags, as it grows its installed base in consumer devices, the technology has potential to increasingly be found within door locks and garage openers for both personal and vehicle access.

A number of enterprise Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) vendors have also recently announced their intentions to integrate UWB technology. In October 2019, Sewio and Cisco partnered to integrate the technology into the Cisco 3802 APs leveraging Decawave’s DW1000 chip. In February 2020, Mist systems also announced partnerships with UWB solution providers Sewio, Inpixon, and Quarion to integrate the technology into their enterprise AP solutions. 

Companies such as NXP anticipate UWB may also be leveraged for secure payment applications. In addition to its mobile chipset, in partnership with Sony and NTT DOCOMO, the company held a smart retail demonstration in January 2020 that leveraged UWB for personalized marketing, cashless barrier free parking, hands-free, and drive through payments. The belief is that the technology is inherently more secure than NFC while offering additional capabilities, making it viable for other applications such as automated retail payments and wider smart city applications. However, whether or not this gains traction remains to be seen and will require considerable investment on the infrastructure side.

Qorvo’s acquisition of Decawave will ultimately help to scale up the technology even further and, alongside a growing number of chipset vendors and solution providers, improve performance, reduce costs and size, and increase the value proposition and potential use cases of the technology. In addition, the technology is increasingly being backed by leading smartphone vendors and momentum is growing among leading vehicle manufacturers and the CCC, as well as already having been well established in the high-accuracy RTLS space. The technology may of course pose challenges to alternative wireless solutions such as BLE. However, at present, Bluetooth still has a considerable advantage across many applications thanks to its wide vendor ecosystem, lower cost and size, high volume shipments, ubiquitous mobile presence, global availability, and continued evolution.

Ultimately, ABI Research believes that these technologies are both complementary and competitive. In certain markets such as automotive keyless entry, UWB undoubtedly poses a significant threat to Bluetooth thanks to its strong backing and secure ranging capabilities. However, in many cases both technologies are complementary. In RTLS, for example, while UWB is traditionally regarded as more accurate, Bluetooth is more than adequate for the vast majority of assets, and many RTLS infrastructure vendors also see the benefit in hybrid solutions that incorporate the strengths and different value propositions of each technology—Mist is a key example of such a solution provider. In addition, BLE is expected to play a key role in many of UWB’s use cases. For example, in automotive keyless entry, BLE is leveraged for initial wakeup and initialization, then subsequently handed over to UWB for secure ranging capabilities. The proposed CCC Digital Key 3.0 solution combines both technologies.

UWB vendors are naturally bullish and anticipate widespread smartphone adoption and for the technology to become a major mainstream consumer and IoT technology over the next five to seven years. Much will depend on how quickly the UWB ecosystem develops, and a key part of this is how rapid smartphone adoption is likely to be. Even technologies such as NFC, with very clear and well-defined use cases such as mobile payments, have yet to reach the ubiquity of Bluetooth. Nonetheless, ABI Research anticipates UWB will become a very significant technology across a wide number of mobile, wearable, smart home, RTLS, and automotive markets in the years to come, and Qorvo, among others, is well placed to take advantage of these opportunities.