October 14th, 2008
New Wi-Fi chipsets promise up to 2x throughput of current 802.11n devices
A couple of weeks ago I did a post on the Home Theater blog about Celeno Communications’ wireless chip that the company claims can support four different HD streams simultaneously. Now another company has announced its own Wi-Fi technology that promises significant performance improvement over the 802.11n spec. Quantenna’s QHS chipsets promise up to 600Mbps data throughput, far greater than the maximum 300Mbps promised by conventional 802.11n devices.
In addition to that throughput—which theoretically would be sufficient for smooth HD-video streaming—Quantenna claims superior range thanks to such buzzword-worthy technology as 4×4 MIMO (as opposed to the 2×2 flavor), transmit (Tx) beamforming (which makes an array from separate antennas to create high-gain beams), and vector mesh networking. The result, according to the company, is simultaneous dual-band transmission with video streaming over the 5GHz band and data over the 2.4GHz one, as well as network coverage for “any size home, anywhere” (though no specific ranges are cited). There are three flavors of wireless chipsets: the QHS1000 delivers that maximum throughput of 600Mbps, while the QHS600 offers a maximum throughput of 400Mbps and the QHS has a maximum throughput of 200Mbps. The company is also offering QHS Plug (including the QHS1000 chip) for wireless networking devices that utilize electrical outlets for transmitting data.
While Celeno Communications’ announcement did not mention any specific product development using its new chipset, Quantenna has stated that manufacturers will be sampling the chips in devices by the end of the year. Neither specific manufacturers nor specific devices were disclosed, however.
Sean Portnoy spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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