NXP launches Wi-Fi 6E tri-band SOCs to unlock the full potential of the 6GHz spectrum

NXP Semiconductor announced the launch of the new CW641 Wi-Fi 6E tri-band System-on-chip (SoC), laying the foundation for a new generation of Wi-Fi 6 devices that can operate in the 6 GHZ band. Given the increasing congestion in the traditional 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, the approval of 1.2GHz unlicensed spectrum for the 6GHz band by the FCC in the United States, as well as the rest of the world, will bring about a dramatic shift in the Wi-Fi landscape. NXP has introduced a new Wi-Fi 6E device designed to take full advantage of this 6GHz band and expand Wi-Fi capacity by increasing throughput, capacity, reliability and reducing latency.

Designed for access points and service provider gateways, the CW641 delivers speeds of more than 4Gbps and multi-user performance in the all-new 6GHz band, increasing capacity and reducing latency to significantly improve the Wi-Fi user experience. By adding 6GHz capabilities to the gateway platform, service providers can choose to efficiently divide available bandwidth across devices to ensure the best user experience for a wide range of applications. Mission-critical high-bandwidth, low-latency applications such as grid backlogs and cloud gaming are well suited to migrating to 6GHz, freeing up the 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands for other low-bandwidth applications.

NXP's new Wi-Fi 6E tri-band SoCs help leverage the revolutionary 6GHz spectrum to improve performance in many use cases, such as home mesh networking, high-resolution music and video streaming, online gaming, video calling, digital downloads, high-data Web content, and more. In addition to access point applications, the CW641 SoC lays the foundation for high-performance Wi-Fi 6E applications in the consumer, automotive, industrial, and Internet of Things (IoT) sectors.

Key features of CW641 include:

● 4x4 Wi-Fi device with 4 space streams

● Support 6GHz, 5GHz and 2.4GHz operation

●160/80/40/20MHz channel bandwidth

●4.8Gbps peak PHY rate

● Uplink and downlink OFDMA

● Uplink and downlink MU-MIMO

Larry Olivas, Head of Marketing for Wireless Connectivity Solutions at NXP, said: "The NXP Wi-Fi 6E chipset combines multi-GB data rates, low latency and higher multi-user performance to deliver what customers have come to expect from 6GHz products. Today's wireless network applications require greater capacity, and these products can meet demand for up to a decade. As our first Wi-Fi 6E SoC to support 6GHz spectrum, the CW641 enhances the overall Wi-Fi experience by providing a less congested band for routers and gateways in multi-device, data-intensive applications. Our new chipset helps leverage this new bandwidth away from congestion to improve performance and reduce interference for devices on the Wi-Fi 6E network."

Andrew Zignani, Principal analyst at ABI Research, said: "The recent availability of unlicensed 6GHz spectrum for Wi-Fi has brought the most exciting revolutionary change to the Wi-Fi landscape, resulting in significant improvements in throughput, capacity, reliability and quality of service. All of this not only helps enable new wireless services, but also addresses key challenges facing the technology today. However, in order to realize this potential, the Wi-Fi industry needs to effectively meet the various needs of the market with the new Wi-Fi 6E chipset. "Solutions such as NXP's new CW641 Wi-Fi 6E chipset will play a fundamental role in supporting 6GHz infrastructure deployment, enabling a diverse ecosystem of end devices, applications and services to take advantage of this vast new Wi-Fi opportunity."