By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
The race to introduce Wi-Fi 7 technology into the enterprise is on – and one of the fastest ways of getting to market with a new Wi-Fi 7 enterprise AP product is to use ready-made modules. Last month Singapore-based module maker Compex Systems introduced their new small form factor, low power consumption Wi-Fi 7 family of modules based on Qualcomm’s Network Pro 620 and 820 platforms.
Wi-Fi 7 enterprise technology is already out there but starting this year, the shift to Wi-Fi 7 will accelerate across the ecosystem. For OEMs already designing APs using Wi-Fi modules in mini-PCIe card format, the transition to Wi-Fi 7-capable APs will be more straight forward. For others, the move towards more compact, low power consumption Wi-Fi 7-capable APs is a real opportunity today, Compex says.
“Our mission is to empower our clients to get to market with the new Wi-Fi 7 products quickly. At the same time, the general trend is towards smaller form-factor APs, which is why the mini-PCIe format is an increasingly popular solution. And when you add to this lower power consumption and very little difference in transmit power, we think our new Wi-Fi 7 family of modules is a winner,” says Alex Tiong, Business Manager at Compex Systems. Read more about Compex’ family of Wi-Fi 7 modules here.
“Our RF engineers set themselves the twin targets of compacting Qualcomm’s reference design by about 50% to an industrial standard form factor, as well as reducing its power consumption significantly. The results are 40% lower power consumption and only 1 dBm lower transmit power for the 2.4 GHz band. Lower power consumption is of course also important for sustainability reasons,” Alex Tiong says.
Compex – whose Wi-Fi modules business represents 35% of their turnover – says they expect to ship up to 150,000 modules per year. The company was founded in 1987 and has been producing Wi-Fi modules for more than 10 years. Compex has been delivering RF components to market-leading enterprise Wi-Fi solution vendors since 2008, the company says.
Multi-Link Operation is the marquee feature of Wi-Fi 7 and consequently it is of course business critical that enterprise Wi-Fi modules support this functionality. In Compex’ case the WLE7002E25 module supports MLO between its 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Compex also implements MLO between adapters to support MLO between the WLE7002E25 and other Wi-Fi 7 modules such as Compex’s 4×4 6 GHz module WLE7000E6, the company says.
Compex has been a Qualcomm Authorized Design Center since 2014 – more here. Compex is headquartered in Singapore with manufacturing facilities in Malaysia and China. See the full description of Compex Wi-Fi 7 and other modules here. Compex can be contacted here.
More information from Compex Systems:
Open source Ath12k support for Qualcomm and x86 platforms: Compex Systems recognises the importance of supporting customers’ products integration with open source ath12k. Ath12k integration support for non-Qualcomm platforms, such as x86 embedded boards, is also available. WLE7002E25 is designed to be price competitive: Compex’s WLE7002E25 is only marginally more expensive than Wi-Fi 6 products of similar configurations. This is to encourage direct migration from Wi-Fi 4 and WiFi 5 to Wi-Fi 7, skipping Wi-Fi 6 development time and costs.
/Claus.
