- Future-proofs Smart TVs, Gaming Consoles, Blu-ray Players, STBs
- Reference Design Ready Now
Quantenna, maker of robust Wi-Fi chips for distributing multiple streams of HD video in the home, has future-proofed itself by being the first to announce a chipset that will be based on the draft of the coming 802.11ac.
Quantenna says its 802.11ac chipset will incorporate its 4x4 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology and beam forming to offer service providers and retail consumers 2 Gbps wireless routers and other devices.
It has reference designs available for box makers that want to get gigabit products to market in 2012.
Wi-Fi 802.11ac will support gigabit speeds and operate in the 5 GHz band. It expands on the broad frequency bands and multiple-antenna capabilities of 802.11n and is backward compatible with 802.11n. It’s expected to replace 802.11n in home network devices. ABI Research says the dominant Wi-Fi version by 2014 will be 802.11ac. Another version of Wi-Fi called 802.11ad delivers even faster data rates in the 60 GHz band.
The 802.11ac version is due out in early 2012, but like its 802.11n predecessor, it may arrive late. That will prompt box makers to use draft 802ac rather than lose would-be buyers by waiting months or even years for the final standard — what happened with 802.11n.
Quantenna’s move with 802.11ac removes any future bottlenecks for streaming higher resolution videos in the home — including 3D and the hoped-for Quad Full High Definition (4K), which, at 3840 x 2160 pixels, doubles the 1080p high-definition television standard in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions.
Quantenna’s 802-11ac draft chipset is called QAC2300. It said its 802.11ac implementation with its 4x4 MIMO technology is optimized for retail consumer electronics, including wireless routers, access points and high-end consumer electronics. Now let’s just add smart TVs, game consoles, Blu-ray players and smart TV adapters.
Quantenna said its QAC2300 two-chip solution includes a new 4x4 MIMO digital baseband chip that supports the latest 802.11ac specifications, combined with their currently-shipping radio frequency (RF) chip, which already supports 802.11ac.
Quantenna said the chipset “extends its lead over other Wi-Fi competitors who have yet to ship 4x4 MIMO technology.”
According to CEO Dr Sam Heidari, Quantenna is differentiating its two chipsets as one for service providers — the existing QHS71x — and one for retail products — the new QAC2300. He said the new chipset “reinforces our leadership role in high-throughput wireless technology and extends it into new retail and consumer electronics market segments.”
There seems certain to be a big market for 802.11ac chips in a world that seemingly can’t get enough broadband speed to feed its insatiable hunger for video content. In-Stat said 802.11ac device shipments will be nearly one billion by 2015.
Quantenna’s reference design, available now, is based on the current draft of the IEEE 802.11ac standard and includes schematics, layout and design guidelines. It uses the company’s existing RF front end chip, which already supports 802.11ac. It provides a design for boxes with 2 Gbps dual-band, dual-concurrent operation (5 GHz 802.11ac plus 2.4 GHz 802.11n) using PCI-e or dual RGMII interfaces.
Quantenna will be showing prototype products based on the new chipset at CES in January.
Looking Ahead
Heidari said the company does not intend to let Broadcom or any other maker of MIMO Wi-Fi chipsets take any deals as Broadcom did two years for the Cisco box that AT&T announced at Telco TV. AT&T is reportedly looking at newer MIMO Wi-Fi technologies to implement in future devices including its whole home DVR. As for the Wi-Fi receiver that AT&T announced, an external Wi-Fi adapter has to be plugged into the whole home receiver.
Quantenna chips have proven performance that’s been tested by many, Heidari said. Its customers include Motorola Mobility, which has landed Norway’s Altibox with the Quantenna chips; an all-but-announced deal with Telefonica, the world’s third largest telco that last week invested in Quantenna; Samsung, for an unspecified project (maybe a TV set with Quantenna built-in?); Sagemcom; Swisscom; STB maker AirTies; Netgear and Dataset.
More deals with both STB makers and with service providers are expected to be announced in this quarter and 2012’s first quarter.
Consumers would love to hear that they could buy TV sets, gaming consoles and Blu-ray players with Quantenna chip sets, but we could not pry that information out of Heidari.
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