By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
Yes, Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 888 is of course a full-featured 5G mobile chipset but for the first time ever Qualcomm’s client side Wi-Fi 6 & 6E capability now comes built into the Snapdragon platform. At Qualcomm’s Snapdragon TechSummit earlier this month the company revealed all of the 888’s capabilities including blazingly fast Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E (6 GHz Wi-Fi) based on the FastConnect 6900 subsystem.
Most of what you’ll hear about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile platform is usually firmly linked to mobile 5G but all of that changed earlier this month at Qualcomm’s yearly Snapdragon TechSummit event (usually held in Hawaii but this time virtualised, of course) where all the details of the chipset giant’s latest smartphone processor platform – dubbed Snapdragon 888 – were revealed.
For the first time Qualcomm’s otherwise independent client-side Wi-Fi chipset – known as FastConnect 6900 and originally released in May of this year – now forms an integral part of the overall Snapdragon 888 solution. As a consequence the new Snapdragon chip comes with no shortage of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E connectivity capability and features built-in.
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The platform now supports 160 MHz channels (in 5 GHz and the new 6 GHz band) and data rates of up to 3.6 Gbps, which are ideal for low-latency VR, Qualcomm says. The company has also taken an evolutionary leap ahead by including non-standard but strongly performance-enhancing Wi-Fi 6 features: 4kQAM – a higher-order modulation expected to become part of a future Wi-Fi 7 standard – and four-stream DBS (Dual Band Simultaneous) for very low latency performance.
Many of the Snapdragon 888’s new Wi-Fi features and hikes in performance are aimed at the mobile gaming market as well as ensuring faster file sharing, a more immersive live streaming experiences, and improved productivity, Qualcomm says. Also see the video below for more. Currently released smartphones using earlier versions of the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform include – among others – devices from Samsung, Xaomi, Asus, Oneplus, and LG.
/Claus.
Below: Qualcomm promotional video featuring the FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6 & 6E platform.
FastConnect 6900 Multi-Gigabit Wi-Fi 6 Performance from Wi-Fi NOW on Vimeo.
