By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
At this week’s Snapdragon Tech Summit event Qualcomm released four new Snapdragon platforms each featuring the latest generation of Qualcomm’s ‘FastConnect’ Wi-Fi connectivity systems. All the new Snapdragon platforms now support Wi-Fi 6E. Earlier in the week Qualcomm announced its intention to become an AFC operator to enable standard power 6 GHz Wi-Fi in Qualcomm-powered products.
Dino Bekis – VP & General Manager of Mobile & Compute Connectivity Business Unit at Qualcomm – says the evolution to Wi-Fi 6 and 6E is the fastest technology transition ever for the Wi-Fi industry. Now the latest product news from Qualcomm throws more fuel on that fire: At this week’s Snapdragon Tech Summit event Qualcomm released four new Snapdragon chipset platforms featuring integrated versions of Qualcomm’s ‘FastConnect’ Wi-Fi device connectivity systems. All new platforms are Wi-Fi 6E-capable.
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This is what the newly released lineup of platforms looks like from a Wi-Fi-centric point of view: The FastConnect 6900 solution now powers high performance Wi-Fi 6E for smartphones (on the Snapdragon 8 mobile platform Gen 1), laptops (on the Snapdragon 8cx compute platform Gen 3), and handheld gaming devices (on the Snapdragon G3X gaming platform Gen 1) while the FastConnect 6700 system is now available on the Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 compute platform.
While all three segments are important, Qualcomm says it is in particular making new inroads into the Wi-Fi connectivity market for enterprise-grade PCs while growing its market share lead in Wi-Fi systems for smartphones. Read our full interview with Qualcomm VP Dino Bekis here.
The top-of-the-line FastConnect 6900 system delivers a peak Wi-Fi data rate of 3.6 Gbps while supporting 160 MHz channels (on both 5 GHz and 6 GHz), 4k QAM, 4-stream DBS (2×2+2×2), and more. The ‘workhorse’ FastConnect 6700 system delivers a peak Wi-Fi data rate of 2.9 GHz, Qualcomm says.
Qualcomm applies to become AFC System Operator
Earlier in the week Qualcomm filed with US regulator FCC to become a so-called ‘AFC System Operator’ – see the announcement by Qualcomm Senior VP & General Manager Rahul Patel on LinkedIn here. AFC – essentially a database lookup function that makes sure 6 GHz Wi-Fi signals don’t cause undue interference with incumbent users of the band – is required for standard power Wi-Fi operation across large parts of the 6 GHz band. Qualcomm says “AFC technology is critical for improved Wi-Fi 6 connectivity for reliable coverage and reduced interference indoors and outdoors.”
/Claus.
