Broadcom delivers Wi-Fi 8 chips for AI

Broadcom Inc. claims the industry’s first Wi-Fi 8 silicon solutions for the broadband wireless edge, including residential gateways, enterprise access points, and smart mobile clients. The company also announced the availability of its Wi-Fi 8 IP for license in IoT, automotive, and mobile device applications.

Designed for AI-era edge networks, the new Wi-Fi 8 chips include the BCM6718 for residential and operator access applications, the BCM43840 and BCM43820 for enterprise access applications, and the BCM43109 for edge wireless clients such as smartphones, laptops, tablets and automotive. These new chips also include a hardware-accelerated telemetry engine, targeting AI-driven network optimization. This engine collects real-time data on network performance, device behavior, and environmental conditions.

(Source: Broadcom Inc.)

The engine is a critical input for AI models and can be used by customers to train and run inference on the edge or in the cloud for use cases such as measuring and optimizing quality of experience (QoE), strengthening Wi-Fi network security and anomaly detection, and lowering the total cost of ownership through predictive maintenance and automated optimization, Broadcom said.

Wi-Fi 8 silicon chips

The BCM6718 residential Wi-Fi access point chip features advanced eco modes for up to 30% greater energy efficiency and third-generation digital pre-distortion, which reduces peak power by 25%. Other features include a four-stream Wi-Fi 8 radio, receiver sensitivity enhancements enabling faster uploads, BroadStream wireless telemetry engine for AI training/inference, and BroadStream intelligent packet scheduler to maximize QoE. It also provides full compliance to IEEE 802.11bn and WFA Wi-Fi 8 specifications.

The BCM43840 (four-stream Wi-Fi 8 radio) and BCM43820 (two-stream scanning and analytics Wi-Fi 8 radio) enterprise Wi-Fi access point chips also feature advanced eco modes and third-generation digital pre-distortion, a BroadStream wireless telemetry engine for AI training/inference, and full compliance to IEEE 802.11bn and WFA Wi-Fi 8 specifications. They also provide an advanced location tracking capability.

The highly-integrated BCM43109 dual-core Wi-Fi 8, high-bandwidth Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 combo chip is optimized for mobile handset applications. The combo chip offers non-primary channel access for latency reduction and improved low-density parity check coding to extend gigabit coverage. It also provides full compliance to IEEE 802.11bn and WFA Wi-Fi 8 specifications, along with 802.15.4 support including Thread V1.4 and Zigbee Pro, and Bluetooth 6.0 high data throughput and higher-bands support. Other key features include a two-stream Wi-Fi 8 radio with 320-MHz channel support, enhanced long range Wi-Fi, and sensing and secure ranging.

The Wi-Fi 8 silicon is currently sampling to select partners. The Wi-Fi IP is currently available for licensing, manufacture, and use in edge client devices.

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