TI aims to bring wireless charging to more devices with smallest receiver chip to date

Well, it looks like we could be about to see wireless charging spread to more places than ever before -- Texas Instruments just unveiled its next-generation, Qi-compliant wireless power receiver chip today, which is a full eighty percent smaller than its previous chip. That promises to make it far easier for manufacturers to implement in everything from cellphones to game consoles to digital cameras, and that small size apparently comes without any compromises, with it providing 5W of output power and a 93-percent peak efficiency that's comparable to an AC adapter. Unfortunately, there's no indication as to when we might see any actual devices that use the chip, but those should be coming before too long -- the complete bq51013 wireless power package is now already available for for just $3.50 in quantities of 1,000. Full press release is after the break.