Intel, Broadcom showcase cross-vendor collaboration for Wi-Fi 7 demonstration
Intel and Broadcom, two Wireless Broadband Alliance members, recently collaborated to show the enhanced capabilities of Wi-Fi for a broader range of markets. The advancement of enterprise applications has necessitated improved wireless connectivity and coverage to create a dependable network for large-scale enterprise adoption. Wireless technology such as 5G has garnered the spotlight for high-speed connectivity to edge devices, including IoT applications, but Wi-Fi developments are working on speed and latency for these uses, too.
Intel and Broadcom showcased the industry’s first cross-vendor Wi-Fi 7 demonstration in an early effort to prove that vendors are ready to respond to these requirements.
The Wi-Fi 7 demonstration trial used an Intel Core processor-based laptop with Wi-Fi 7 connected to a Broadcom Wi-Fi 7 access point and demonstrated over-the-air speeds of more than 5 gigabits per second.
This collaboration demonstrated that companies are working to supply technologies for next-generation products. It also showed that industry partnerships are critical to developing wireless technologies for providing business-class network connectivity and security.
“We are proud to highlight how next-generation Wi-Fi 7 can make new mobile PC experiences possible,” said Carlos Cordeiro, Intel fellow and wireless CTO, client computing group at Intel. “We would like to thank our colleagues at Broadcom for their great technical cooperation, which helped enable this unprecedented, first-of-its-kind demonstration of ultra-high speed and ultra-low latency Wi-Fi 7.”
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What is Wi-Fi 7?
Technological advancements in augmented reality, virtual reality, and ultra-high-definition media streaming demand tens of Gbps throughput. The IEEE 802.11be standard, known as Wi-Fi 7, provides essential medium access control layers and improved physical layer capabilities to support 4096-Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM).
Wi-Fi 6, the previous generation of wireless fidelity, has the highest order modulation technique of 1024-QAM, where the modulated symbol carries 10 bits. However, with IEEE 802.11be, the improvements have enabled 4K-QAM, which allows a modulated symbol to take 12 bits — increasing the data rate by 20%.
The next generation of applications like virtual reality, gaming, and video streaming require more efficient spectrum use to avoid poor quality of service. Wi-Fi 7 can increase the bandwidth available by multi-band aggregation across 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands.
“Wi-Fi 7 is the most powerful and capable Wi-Fi protocol yet and will allow Wi-Fi to continue to serve the most demanding applications in the consumer and vertical markets with the highest level of determinism yet,” said Phil Solis, research director, connectivity at IDC. “Interoperability testing between Intel and Broadcom will enable the development of products that can be used in the test beds for official Wi-Fi Alliance certification testing.”
According to a news release, Intel and Broadcom anticipate continuing their collaboration to demonstrate more capabilities of the new Wi-Fi 7 wireless communication technology.
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Article Topics
5G | Broadcom | chip | Intel | IoT | networking | Wi-Fi 7 | wireless
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