Broadcom Unveils World's First Wi-Fi 6E Chip

From PC Mag: We're all still getting used to the new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) standard, but chip makers aren't standing still. Broadcom gave us the first Wi-Fi 6 chip, and now it's giving us the world's first Wi-Fi 6E chip, called the BCM4389.

Wi-Fi 6 brings with it a number of key advantages over Wi-Fi 5. It's faster, but it's also built to relieve network congestion, provide greater client capacity, and reduce the power consumption of connected devices. Right now, Wi-Fi 6 relies on the existing 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands we're all used to hearing about our routers using, but Broadcom's Wi-Fi 6E chip extends support to the 6GHz band, which is going to be operational soon.

Broadcom is claiming its 6E chip for mobile devices is capable of doubling Wi-Fi speeds while cutting latency in half (compared to Wi-Fi 5). 6E also offers wider 160Mhz channels and speeds of up to 2Gbps, where as Wi-Fi 6 is limited to 80MHz channels and 1Gbps speeds. In real terms, Broadcom views 6E as improving or unlocking access to mobile AR and VR, ultra high-definition video streaming, in-vehicle entertainment, and high-speed tethering between different devices. Remember, that's all achieved while using up to five-times less battery power, too.

Compared to Broadcom's BCM4375 Wi-Fi 6 chip, BCM4389 also brings with it access to Bluetooth 5 with MIMO radio and tri-band simultaneous radio (4375 is dual-band). Broadcom says this allows for no more Wi-Fi interference and no audio chopping, while the tri-band radio means Bluetooth pairing that's twice as fast.

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