Are WBC86TX, WLC38RX discontinued?

[Wisejet]

Hello
Currently, all information on WBC86TX and WLC38RX has disappeared from the ST homepage.
Does this mean that the two chips are discontinued?
I would like to know whether they should not be applied to new designs,
and how long they are planned to be produced.

[Didier HERROUIN]

Hello,

WBC86TX and WLC38RX are not discontinued.
Please contact you ST local representative who can provide you the right information depending on your project.

[willzhou]

Hi Kim

Please find WBC86TX and WLC38RX information  at this link

Wireless Charging solution Wiki - STMicroelectronics Community

[AnkhInnovationsLLC]

The dev kits are no where to be found on the face of the earth.

Why is there nowhere to buy the dev kits?

[Didier HERROUIN]

ST has decided to limit the support for mass market projects.

Please contact you ST local representative who can give you availability of the eval kits depending on your project.

[AnkhInnovationsLLC]

I did but they're on vacation for two weeks. Is there someone else?

[AnkhInnovationsLLC]

For those looking for the drivers, I found a clone of the repo here:

https://github.com/Andrew0050/STWirelessCharging-C-Drivers

I really must say, if there is ever an alternative to an ST part, we will gladly choose it. Just think what you guys did for a moment here.

1) Released development kits, chips, and drivers for more than 1 year. Companies start integrating at a huge cost to them.
2) Removed the development kits from circulation and didn't produce anymore
3) Removed all drivers for your chips
4) Expect people to wait on > 1 month tickets from India to receive support to products they were already developing, at their own time and cost

Like I really just struggle with how bad the public facing content and support of ST is...

[cyber_v1]

I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories but I'm quite sure there is a collusion of sorts between big corporations like Apple, the Qi consortium, and/or IC manufacturers who produce chips for Qi charging, to limit the influx of new Qi chargers to the market. Because most (all?) of the manufacturers either wound down the production of the chips, or closed the documentation and the support down behind a paywall. It can't be a coincidence.

And IIUC the ordinary support people from ST can't do anything about it; they were given instructions and they just follow it, or they will lose their jobs.

[cyber_v1]

@AnkhInnovationsLLC please check your DM.

[AnkhInnovationsLLC]

Thanks for your message. We are nervously proceeding with our ST designs, as we have them both nearly finalized. 

I still can't believe the behaviour of a company like ST to remove all the data sheets, the software and the dev kits after we have spent tens of thousands of US dollars and man hours integrating their products, only to have everything be taken offline, with the parts are still being produced. 

I've never seen anything so insulting to medium sized design engineering firms like ours and any electronics designer in general in my 30+ year career.

We reached out to ST only to get a vacation message and plan about 30K first year units of each chip (tx and rx) and no one has gotten back to us.