The fight is on for Wi-Fi 7 chip superiority, especially between Broadcom and Qualcomm. As with many next-generation breakthroughs involving the chip industry, consumers may not notice or care, especially with Wi-Fi 7 laptops and other products not shipping until late 2003 or early 2004.
It’s important to remember that the Wi-Fi 7 standard is not yet finalized. Still, chipmakers require years of research and development to prep for when the curtain finally lifts on a new standard.
For Wi-Fi 7’s impact on industrial and enterprise customers who install Wi-Fi access points and routers for critical connectivity, some analysts are taking notice how Broadcom and Qualcomm, primarily, will differentiate themselves.
“Both are claiming around 11 Gbps…and 4K QAM …and multilink,” said Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “How they aggregate and switch will be a differentiator, and what kind of power levels are required.”
IDC analyst Phil Solis said in addition to Broadcom and Qualcomm, MediaTek and Intel will have Wi-Fi 7 chipsets as well, while OnSemiconductor and Renesas are likely to join the fray. “Broadcom and Qualcomm have been the most aggressive and target both clients and access points,” he noted.
There are other technology specs that matter in varying degrees, but analysts will also be tracking market factors, including how each company is affected by the global supply chain doldrums that have been hanging around for two years.
“It’s unlikely an equipment vendor will switch from Qualcomm or Broadcom and go the other way,” Sag added. “The big difference will be cost and time to market and that’s what OEMs care about most.” As with most early technology claims, cost and the power consumption specs for the vendors’ chips are not widely known.
On the question of sufficient supplies to manufacture chips, Sag said he hasn’t seen reports that Broadcom is limited and is “confident that Qualcomm doesn’t have supply issues..They’ve said they are out of the woods on that.”
Qualcomm on Wednesday announced sampling of its “Wi-Fi 7 -capable” chips for next-generation APs, routers and carrier gateways. Called the Networking Pro Series Gen 3 family, Qualcomm had first announced the Fast Connect 7800 in February for client applications.
In April, Broadcom announced five chips for both smartphones and residential and enterprise Wi-Fi access points and named several expected customers.
RELATED: Broadcom samples five Wi-Fi 7 chips
Qualcomm’s latest four Wi-Fi 7 -capable platforms are all tagged Networking Pro. They are:
--Networking Pro 1620, a quad-band, 16-stream chip with 33 Gbps for large enterprise, stadium and premium home mesh systems.
--Networking Pro 1220, a tri-band 12-stream, 21 Gbps peak stream for enterprise, SMB, prosumer and premium home mesh systems.
--Networking Pro 820, a quad-band, 8-stream, 13.7 Gbps wireless capacity for enterprise, SMB, prosumer and premium home mesh systems.
--Networking Pro 620, a tri-band, 6-stream, 10.8 Gbps wireless capacity for enterprise, SMB, gaming and home mesh systems.