Published in PC Hardware

Qualcomm about to improve home wi-fi

by on14 February 2017


New 802.11ax chips on the way


Qualcomm is about to spruce up home Wi-Fi performance with some new Wi-Fi chips.

The IPQ8074 system-on-chip (SoC) for broadcasters (routers and access points) and the QCA6290 SoC for receivers (Wi-Fi devices) are the first end-to-end commercial Wi-Fi portfolio to support the all-new 802.11ax standard.

Qualcomm says the IPQ8074 is a highly-integrated all-in-one platform designed for access points, gateways and routers.

It is based on a 14nm chip which integrates an 11ax radio, MAC and baseband, and a quad-core 64-bit A53 CPU as well as a dual-core network accelerator.

It uses a 12x12 Wi-Fi configuration (8x8 on the 5GHz band and 4x4 on the 2.4GHz band) and supports MU-MIMO for uplink. Thus, it can deliver up to 4.8 Gbps while maintaining fast connections over a larger coverage area than any 802.11ac chip.

Qualcomm says the QCA6290 SoC clients will see a four fold increase in throughput speed in a crowded network.

It supports 2x2 MU-MIMO and can realize the full benefits of the 8x8 MU-MIMO thanks to its 8x8 sounding mechanism.

The chip can combine 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands using its Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) feature to deliver up to 1.8 Gbps Wi-Fi speed. Compared with 802.11ac, the chip can reduce power consumption by two thirds.

Last modified on 14 February 2017
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