Broadcom Announces 802.11ac Combo Chip, BCM4335
by Brian Klug on July 24, 2012 7:31 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Broadcom
- Mobile
- Tablets
- BCM4335
Back at the Netgear 802.11ac event where we got to see some of the first 802.11ac enabled R6300 and R6200 routers, Broadcom told me that the announcement of an 802.11ac combo chip was imminent. That was just under a month ago, and today they've made good on that promise with the announcement of BCM4335, the successor to BCM4334 which includes single spatial stream 802.11ac support.
This is the latest in Broadcom's combo chip portfolio for smartphones, tablets, and other small form factor mobile devices. We've seen BCM4330 and BCM4334 in a huge number of devices, and no doubt 4335 will follow suit. BCM4335 includes a number of the optional 802.11ac features including 256QAM, short guard interval, beamforming, low density parity check (LDPC), and space-time block coding (STBC). This results in a PHY rate of 433.3 Mbps with 80 MHz channels on 802.11ac.
In addition, BCM4335 includes support for legacy 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n and 5 GHz 802.11a/n (20 and 40 MHz channels). BCM4335 is also manufactured on a 40nm process, same as BCM4334, so power consumption should be relatively similar, and likely better with 802.11ac. The usual combination of Bluetooth 4.0 and FM gets inherited from BCM4334 as well. BCM4335 is currently sampling and will enter production Q1 2013.
Source: Broadcom
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MantasPakenas - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link
Every SoC manufacturer seems to be working hard to integrate latest and greatest radios onto their chips, why not WiFi as well? Is it too little and power efficient to bother or there are some other factors in consideration, e.g. patent issues, etc?MantasPakenas - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link
Just as I was afraid, it seems to be a question of someone not-so-well-informed :)First of all, Qualcomm already started integrating WiFi, Bluetooth and related circuitry with the S4. Second, there's an Anandtech article about Intel planning to go the same route, and the challenges it faces with WiFi.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5554/intel-demonstra...
bobbozzo - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link
802.11 == WIFIbobbozzo - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link
nevermindextide - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link
Can't wait for something like this to show up on a Mini PCIe card for laptops!hechacker1 - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link
Is the standard finalized, or is this their implementation?iCrunch - Saturday, July 28, 2012 - link
In response to the post before me, no, it's still in draft status and yes, the single-chip 802.11 WiFi/Bluetooth combo chip is Broadcom's quite successful implementation.All WiFi chips in Apple devices (Mac's, iPhone, iPad, etc.), for example, utilize Broadcom. Personally, I have one of their latest 802.11n/BT 4.0 chips with 3X3 MIMO producing speeds of 450Mbps, and Bluetooth 4.0's power efficiency is incredible! That said, I still find myself using Gigabit Ethernet a lot. I can't wait to get 1.3GHz WiFi 802.11ac.