The first gigabit speed 802.11ac ICs allow consumers to load web content on a mobile device or home wireless network 3x faster. The BCM4360, BCM4352, BCM43526 and BCM43516 chips are also said to be 6x more power efficient than equivalent 802.11n solutions – partly due to requiring less up time to load a given content.
The BCM4360 supports the PCIe interface and implements 3-stream 802.11ac specifications with speeds up to 1.3 Gbits/s. The BCM4352 and BCM43526 implement 2-stream links at up to 867 Mbits/s with PCIe or USB interfaces and the BCM43516 supports USB at up to 433 Mbit/s with a single stream. The ICs use beam-forming to steer content in the direction of the intended receiver, increasing reliability and extending range, and they support full backward compatibility. The technology is faster because it uses a wider 80 MHz instead of 40 MHz channel and it uses 256-QAM modulation scheme vs the prior 64-QAM scheme. (Price not given – Sample available now.)
by Jim Harrison
Broadcom , Irvine , CA
Sales 949-926-5000
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