By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
Broadcom – an industry-leading provider of Wi-Fi chips powering client devices and network equipment – today announced reaching the one billion Wi-Fi 6/6E chips shipped milestone. This also means that in only one year the company has shipped a remarkable 500 million Wi-Fi 6/6E chips, Broadcom says in a blog here. The company is also strongly hinting at a near-future Wi-Fi 7 chipset release.
Despite being arguably less vocal than their competitors with regards to their leadership and accomplishments on the Wi-Fi front, it is no secret that Broadcom is shipping Wi-Fi chips by the hundreds of millions – perhaps most famously powering the Wi-Fi capabilities of Samsung and Apple smartphones. Now the company says it has reached another milestone: One billion Broadcom Wi-Fi 6/6E chips have now been shipped, the company said in this blog today.
The milestone also means that Broadcom has shipped a staggering 500 million Wi-Fi 6/6E chips in just one year. That number includes Wi-Fi chips for devices – such as phones – as well as chips powering network equipment, such as home gateways, consumer-grade routers, as well as enterprise-grade access points. Broadcom’s blog also strongly hints towards – perhaps an imminent? – release of chips supporting the new Wi-Fi 7 standard.
Vijay Nagarajan, VP Wireless Connectivity Division at Broadcom, says Wi-Fi 7 “chips for smartphones, tablets, PCs, routers, enterprise access points and carrier gateways are well on their way to being a part of your living room and office” and that the solutions will bring experiences “that are integral to the next iteration of the Internet that some call the Metaverse.” He also points to the recent successful trials of US cable giant Comcast’s new Broadcom-powered DOCSIS 4.0 modem to which Wi-Fi 7 will be “the perfect complement,” Vijay Nagarajan says.
Among notable Broadcom-powered Wi-Fi 6E devices releases this year are the new Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro smartphones, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and Plus, NETGEAR’s iconic ‘Nighthawk’ router (the latest released at CES 2022), Comcast’s xFi Advanced (read more here), and many more.
Broadcom was the first chipset provider to announce a Wi-Fi 6E-capable solution in August of 2020 and subsequently Broadcom chips powered the world’s first Wi-Fi 6E-capable smartphone – the Samsung Galaxy S21 – released in January of last year. Broadcom technology experts and passionate Wi-Fi proponents were deeply involved in working with the FCC to help secure new regulation resulting in the release of the full 6 GHz band to Wi-Fi in the US in 2020. Historic new 6 GHz regulation was signed into law by then FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on April 28, 2020.
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan made a point of mentioning the company’s Wi-Fi results at Broadcom’s first quarter 2022 earnings call yesterday: “We remain the market leader in delivering Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E chips to leading phones as well as routers, enterprise access points and carrier gateways,” Hock Tan said.
/Claus.
