5G: Broadcom Announces 802.11ac WiFi SoCs

Broadcom says it is first to roll out integrated SoCs for home and SMB 5G WiFi network devices.

According to the manufacturer, the StrataGX chip for SMB routers as well as NAS products, and the BCM4708x series for home routers and gateways combine a high performance processor, a GbE switch, GbE physical layer transceivers, USB 3.0 and traffic accelerators.

The new chips promise users to be able to "simultaneously stream video content and high bandwidth application downloads 10x faster without the buffering and interruptions associated with current networks." Broadcom noted that the SoCs enable a significant reduction in Ethernet power consumption. 70 percent savings are achieved when networks are active and up to 95 percent during downtime, according to the company.

5G WiFi, also referred to as 802.11ac, is currently developed as a standard for the 5.15 to 5.9 GHz band as part of the 802.11 wireless networking technology. The new standard, which is expected to be finalized late this year, will support data transfer speeds of up to 3.6 Gbps. 802.11ac devices will be backwards compatible with 802.11 b/g/n networks.