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5G WiFi PA and LNA in one chip from Broadcom

Date: 24/05/2013
Broadcom Corporation has introduced its first 5G WiFi combination chips targeted specifically for entry level consumer devices, including PCs, notebooks, tablets and smartphones.

“802.11ac chips have started shipping in significant quantity in 2013 and by the end of 2014, 11ac is expected to be included in more than 50 percent of total Wi-Fi ICs shipped,” said Peter Cooney, Practice Director, ABI Research. “There will be rapid adoption across many devices with high end smartphones, laptops and tablets leading the race.”

“Broadcom is the leader in delivering 802.11ac-based products, and we reinforce that leadership today, staying one large step ahead of our competitors with new 5G WiFi chips designed to help OEMs capitalize on the massive potential of entry level mobile devices,” said Rahul Patel, Broadcom Vice President, Product Marketing, Wireless Connectivity Combo Group. “This 1x1 design lowers cost while still delivering dramatic speed, power and performance, empowering a broad new user base to effortlessly stream HD video and significantly increase their Wi-Fi range in the home, office or hotspot zone.”

Broadcom’s 5G WiFi technology is currently powering the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone and HTC One smartphone. Additionally, the company’s 5G WiFi is integrated into select LG Digital TVs and the ASUS ROG G75VW gaming laptop, as well as routers from Belkin, Buffalo, Cisco, D-Link, Edimax, NETGEAR, Samsung and Tenda. Broadcom today extends that leadership with its single-chip 5G WiFi products for mass market devices.

BCM4335 integrate the complete front-end, power amplifier (PA) and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), to enable a low-cost, mass market solution.

The BCM43162 is a peripheral component interconnect express-based (PCIe) client solution for PCs and notebooks with support for Microsoft Windows operating system, and the BCM4339 with secure digital input output (SDIO) interface, is a mobility solution for smartphones and tablets with support for Microsoft Windows and Android operating systems.

Other features include:
Integrated 5G WiFi PA and LNA technology
Transmit beamforming and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes
433Mbps Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) PHY rate for superior speed
Broadcom proprietary TurboQAM for 33 percent increase in 2.4GHz speed
Broadcom proprietary Channel Smoothing WLAN PHY to increase receiver sensitivity by an average of 2 db across 802.11n and 802.11ac rates

Broadcom claims specific to the BCM4339, it is the only vendor to offer Long Term Evolution (LTE) coexistence.

Availability: Broadcom’s BCM43162 and BCM4339 are now sampling with early access customers with volume production expected in 2H 2013.