May 30, 2013 – Broadcom, a global wired and wireless semiconductor company, announced today a 5G Wi-Fi combo chip to target entry-level electronic devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Broadcom plans to unveil its new 5G Wi-Fi solution at COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2013, which will be held in Taiwan from June 4 to 8.

As more enterprise and retail routers rapidly transition to the IEEE 802.11ac standard, 5G Wi-Fi is being widely adopted in PCs, tablets, smartphones, and more. This is expected to open up significant new opportunities for 5G Wi-Fi to be integrated into mass-market platforms. As the first company to offer 802.11ac technology across all product segments, Broadcom enables OEMs to provide affordable solutions that integrate the performance, range, and power benefits of 5G Wi-Fi into a single-chip design.

Peter Cooney, Practice Director of Semiconductor at ABI Research, stated, "802.11ac chips began shipping in significant quantities in 2013 and will account for more than 50% of total Wi-Fi IC shipments by the end of 2014," adding, "We now expect 5G Wi-Fi adoption in many devices, including industry-leading high-end smartphones, laptops, and tablets."

Rahul Patel, Vice President of Product Marketing for Broadcom’s Wireless Connectivity Combo Business Unit, said, “Broadcom is a leading provider of 802.11ac-based products. “In addition, we are staying a step ahead of competitors with 5G Wi-Fi designed to help OEMs unlock the great potential of entry-level mobile devices,” they said. “The product’s 1x1 design delivers incredible speed, power, and performance at a low cost, and strengthens a new user base that streams HD video and increases Wi-Fi coverage in homes, offices, and hotspot zones.”

Meanwhile, Broadcom has supplied 5G Wi-Fi technology to the recently released Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One smartphones. In addition, 5G Wi-Fi is integrated into some LG digital TVs, the ASUS ROG G75VW gaming laptop, and routers from Belkin, Buffalo, Cisco, D-Link, Edimax, Netgear, Samsung, and Tenda. Broadcom is expanding its leadership by continuously providing single chips for 5G Wi-Fi products for today's terminal market.

Main Features:

Broadcom’s second-generation 5G Wi-Fi combo chips, the BCM43162 and BCM4339, provide the same performance, range, and power advantages as the existing 5G Wi-Fi combo chip, the BCM4335, while fully integrating the front-end, power amplifier (PA), and low-noise amplifier (LNA) to enable low-cost, high-volume solutions.

BCM43162 is a PCIe (PCI Express)-based client solution for PCs/laptops supporting the Windows operating system, while BCM4339 is a mobile solution for smartphones/tablets supporting Windows and Android operating systems equipped with an SDIO (secure digital input/output) interface.

Additional features:

- Integrated 5G Wi-Fi PA and LNA technology enabling small form factor designs and realizing reduced Bill of Materials (BOM)
- Extensive coverage and transmission beamforming technology for powerful whole-home media/data applications, Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code
- 433Mbps WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) PHY speed
- Broadcom’s proprietary TurboQAM® technology - Provides 33% increased speed in the 2.4GHz band
- Broadcom's proprietary Channel Smoothing WLAN PHY technology - Provides an average 2dB increase in reception sensitivity in 802.11n and 802.11ac standards
- Broadcom is the only company providing LTE Co-Ex (Coexistence) functionality through the BCM4339.

brownRoadcom's BCM43162 and BCM4339 are being supplied as samples to early access customers and are scheduled for full-scale production in the second quarter of 2013.