Broadcom is trying to battle overcrowding on short-range wireless networks with its new integrated Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 chipset for smartphones and other consumer gadgets. The chip supports faster speeds and higher throughput than legacy Wi-Fi by broadcasting over a wider range of frequency bands. The chip is also designed to reduce choppy audio on Bluetooth headphones.
The chip adds the ability to communicate with the 6-GHz band, which can accommodate the deluge of data flooding the 2.4- and 5-GHz bands used by legacy Wi-Fi technology. It delivers double the data rate of current solutions on the market by offloading to the new frequency band, which is uncongested and unencumbered by Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5, said Broadcom. It also burns through less power than its current generation of Wi-Fi 6 chips.
The BCM4389 chip can also be used to reduce skipping, stuttering, or distorted audio while listening to music or taking phone calls on Bluetooth headphones, says Broadcom. It uses beamforming to evade the interference from the signals broadcast by other Bluetooth gadgets. These stray signals can impair audio performance and range in hotels, airports, or other overcrowded areas. They can also lead to wireless dropouts.
Broadcom sells chips with integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS technology to many of the world's largest phone manufacturers, including Apple. Last month, the company said it had entered into long-term contracts to supply "high-performance wireless components and modules" to Apple, giving it guaranteed spots in the iPhone and other gadgets into 2023. The BCM4389 could be used in smartphones and other devices by late 2020.
Broadcom started shipping its current generation of integrated WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 chips for the smartphone market several years ago. The chipset, the BCM4375, offers significantly faster data transfers than Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 devices. The new chip, which supports data rates of up to 1.2 Gb/s, incorporates 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi radios that broadcast on 20-MHz channels and 5-GHz Wi-Fi radios that pump information through 80-MHz pipes.
According to Broadcom, the chip will also support the Wi-Fi 6E standard, which adds the 6-GHz frequency band to Wi-Fi networks and widens the channels from 80 to 160 MHz. It handles data speeds of up to 2.4 Gb/s by tapping the 2.4-GHz band and the 5- or 6-GHz bands at once. The BCM4389 slashes latency by 50% and curbs power consumption by 80% compared to current solutions on the market, including Broadcom's BCM4375.
The BCM4389 is based on an advanced architecture with three separate radios, including an independent radio that wastes less power than the Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 subsystems. Broadcom said that additional radios can be used to identify interference and redirect the smartphone to less-crowded networks. The internal system also stops Bluetooth and Wi-Fi from drawing more power than necessary by shutting them down when inactive.
Furthermore, the independent radio can be used to scan the surrounding area for other Bluetooth 5 devices, doubling the pairing speed of a smartphone with wireless headphones and other accessories, said Vijay Nagarajan, vice president of mobile communications at Broadcom. The short-range radio technology also boosts the ability of the Bluetooth IC to accurately locate a second device—or a tracking tag attached to keys, a wallet, or other objects.
The Wi-Fi 6 standard, instead of increasing the raw speed of the network, improves how it handles clusters of smartphones and other electronics. The new chips take advantage of multiple-user, multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) technology, allowing the network to accommodate many more devices. Instead of each connected device sending data to the router and then pausing for other devices to send their information, the Wi-Fi 6 chips can leap to the front of the line, reducing delays.
Broadcom said the Wi-Fi 6 chips are also capable of dividing data into separate bands and then relaying the resulting signals over separate channels, or orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) technology. It can be used not only to increase data rates, but also to improve the coverage of the network. The chips also support 1024 QAM, which encodes significantly more data onto each separate signal, resulting in faster speeds and higher throughput than legacy Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is in the process of appending the 6-GHz band to supplement the unlicensed 2.4- and 5-GHz bands. With its frequency range of 1,200 MHz compared to the 500 MHz in the 5-GHz band, opening the 6-GHz band would be more like adding lanes to a highway instead of increasing the speed limit. The lanes of the highway—the Wi-Fi channels—can also be widened from 20 or 80 MHz to 160 MHz.
Broadcom said that Wi-Fi 6E routers and gateways would be introduced once the new band is opened in 2020. In January, Broadcom rolled out its first family of chipsets that would be used in Wi-Fi routers that support the 6-GHz standard. Phil Solis, analyst at International Data Corp., said that "unencumbered by legacy Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 devices, Wi-Fi 6E will be able to reach its full potential in terms of data rates, latency, and network efficiency."
Currently, more than 150 million smartphones on the market can support Wi-Fi 6 networks, according to Broadcom.
