January 18, 2012 – Broadcom, a global wired and wireless semiconductor company, today announced the first family of 802.11ac (5G Wi-Fi) chips designed for a wide range of product segments. Broadcom’s newly released IEEE 802.11ac chips offer three times faster speeds and up to six times greater power efficiency compared to similar 802.11n solutions.

5G Wi-Fi is the next-generation Wi-Fi standard required by today's mobile and video era. Based on 802.11ac, 5G Wi-Fi represents a significant evolution from existing 802.11a/b/g/n networks. Broadcom's 5G Wi-Fi improves wireless range in the home and enables consumers to enjoy HD quality video simultaneously through wider coverage and support for more devices. Furthermore, enhanced speeds allow consumers to download web content from mobile devices faster and enable the synchronization of large files, such as videos, in a fraction of the time required by 802.11n devices. Because 5G Wi-Fi transmits the same amount of data at much faster speeds, devices enter low-power mode more quickly, providing significant power consumption advantages.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index forecast, digital content consumption is growing rapidly, with video content expected to reach approximately 90% of global consumer traffic. At the same time, internet traffic is rapidly shifting from wired to wireless networks. The increasing reliance on wireless networks, the explosive growth in video consumption, and the increase in the use of wireless devices are all interfering with existing 802.11a/b/g/n networks, causing consumers to experience performance degradation, choppy video, and slow load times.

Broadcom's 5G Wi-Fi technology is overcoming digital content and wireless device issues by creating more stable wireless coverage in homes. Broadcom's 5G Wi-Fi solution family includes BCM4360, BCM4352, BCM43526, and BCM43516.