This article is authorized to be reprinted from the public account “Semiconductor Industry Observation”, ID: icbank; Author: Du Qin DQ
WiFi networks are widely regarded as infrastructure as important as water and electricity. From the launch of the first generation of WiFi products in 2000 to now, it has been 21 years. Looking back on more than 20 years of WiFi development, what has been its evolution? The benefits and commercial value of Wi-Fi are well known to enterprises. In recent years, the WiFi chip market has seen the most players participating, with new and old companies, including router manufacturers, IoT chip manufacturers, and RF front-end module companies, all rushing into this market, especially many domestic companies.
20 Years of WiFi Technology Evolution
First, what is WiFi? At a basic level, WiFi is a way to connect broadband internet to devices using wireless transmitters and radio signals. Once the transmitter receives data from the internet, it converts the data into a radio signal that can be received and read by WiFi-enabled devices. Information is then exchanged between the transmitter and the devices.
According to the WiFi white paper released by Huawei, the development of WiFi over the years is essentially a process of pursuing high bandwidth. The evolution of Wi-Fi technology occurs every 4 to 5 years, with the main purpose of each improvement being to increase bandwidth.
Image source: Huawei WiFi white paper
In 1997, IEEE established the first wireless local area network communication standard 802.11, allowing devices to wirelessly transmit data at a speed of 2 Mbps. In 1999, IEEE released the 802.11b standard, which had a transmission speed of 11 Mbps and operated in the 2.4 GHz band, five times faster than the original standard. In the same year, IEEE also released the 802.11a standard, which operated in the 5 GHz band with a data transmission rate of 54 Mbps.
The first generation of Wi-Fi products, 802.11, was launched in 2000, with a maximum data rate of 11 Mbps and operating in the 2.4 GHz band, comparable to the speed of most computers connected via wired networks at the time. WiFi uses electromagnetic waves to transmit data on two main frequencies: 2.4 GHz (802.11b) and 5 GHz (802.11a). Over the years, 2.4 GHz has been a popular choice for WiFi users because it is compatible with most mainstream devices and is cheaper than 5 GHz.
In 2003, the faster speed and distance coverage of early WiFi versions combined to form the 802.11g standard, with a data transmission speed of 54 Mbps. Routers also became better, with higher power and wider coverage. WiFi began to catch up, competing with the fastest wired connection speeds.
The 802.11n version appeared in 2009, which introduced a new naming convention known as WiFi 4. This standard brought significant changes to WiFi by introducing Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) data, using multiple antennas to enhance communication between the transmitter and receiver, with a maximum connection speed of 600 Mbit/s, making it faster and more reliable than its predecessors.
802.11n was also the first WiFi technology to operate simultaneously in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. This was mainly due to the increasing number of devices using 2.4 GHz, which became crowded and slowed down. To address this issue, dual-band routers emerged. These routers contain two types of radios that can simultaneously support connections on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz links. By default, devices within the range of dual-band routers will automatically connect to the faster, more efficient 5 GHz frequency. However, if the device is far away or behind a wall, it can use 2.4 GHz as a backup.
In 2014, the 802.11ac standard was released, also known as WiFi 5, with speeds of up to 3.5 Gbps, but it only supports 5 GHz, weakening the user experience on 2.4 GHz.
The release of WiFi 6 in 2020 brought great hope for faster connections and links between technologies, with speeds of up to 9.6 Gbps, nearly 300% higher than WiFi 5’s 3.5 Gbps. Wi-Fi 6 not only has all the advanced MIMO features of Wi-Fi 5 but also introduces many new features for high-density deployment scenarios, such as OFDMA frequency division multiplexing technology, DLIULMU-MIMO technology, higher-order modulation technology (1024-QAM), spatial reuse technology (SR) & BSS Coloring mechanisms, and extended coverage (ER).
In 2020, the WiFi Alliance also announced the extended version of WiFi 6, WiFi 6E, which operates in the 6 GHz band in addition to the original 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. This allows WiFi 6E to have more continuous spectrum, wider channels, and less interference. The birth of WiFi 6E was mainly due to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voting on April 23, 2020, to allocate the 1200 MHz unlicensed band in the 6 GHz band to WiFi 6.
Although WiFi 6 is primarily designed to improve user experience in high-density scenarios, it still struggles to meet the high demands of online gaming, remote work, AR/VR, and 8K video. Thus, WiFi 7 is on the horizon, expected to be another significant leap in connectivity.
This year, WiFi 7 has already begun to show its potential. MediaTek pointed out at its recent technology summit that WiFi 7 will be 2.4 times faster than Wi-Fi 6E, bringing faster speeds, lower latency, and better interference resistance. The WiFi 7 standard is expected to be released in the second quarter of 2022. Huawei’s introduction of WiFi 7 states: “WiFi 7, also known as IEEE 802.11be, has ultra-high throughput (EHT). WiFi 7 is based on WiFi 6 and introduces 320 MHz bandwidth, 4096 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), multi-resource units (RU), multi-link operation (MLO), enhanced multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO), and multi-access point (AP) coordination technologies. With these cutting-edge technologies, WiFi 7 has higher data transmission rates and lower latency compared to WiFi 6. WiFi 7 is expected to support throughput of up to 30 Gbps, about three times that of WiFi 6.” The WiFi 7 (802.11be) task group was officially established in May 2019 to develop 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7).
Comparison of WiFi 6 and WiFi 7 (Image source: Huawei official website)
WiFi 6 Remains Hot, WiFi 7 Becomes the Next Battleground
The initial development of WiFi chips mainly focused on router chips, but in recent years, the emergence of the Internet of Things and the interconnection and interaction of an astonishing number of consumer electronics and computing devices has created a strong demand for IoT WiFi chips. Furthermore, since the WiFi 5 standard, WiFi RF front-end chips have gradually been externalized, thus becoming an important increment in the RF front-end market. Overall, WiFi chips can be broadly classified into three categories.
The latest generation of WiFi technology has been a focal point of industry attention. Currently, in the WiFi 6/6E main chip market, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and MediaTek are leading the way. However, Qualcomm and MediaTek have made rapid advances in recent years due to their technological prowess in mobile phones. Additionally, the influx of numerous domestic companies has made the WiFi chip market increasingly lively.
Broadcom is the leader in the WiFi chip market, holding several world firsts in Wi-Fi 6E and maintaining a differentiated advantage in the high-end WiFi chip sector. Earlier this year, it provided chips for the world’s first Wi-Fi 6E smartphone released by Samsung. Broadcom also supplies WiFi chips for Apple, but recently, Apple has been hiring wireless chip engineers involved in RF, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi chips, which may put some pressure on Broadcom. The $15 billion wireless component supply agreement reached between Broadcom and Apple at the beginning of 2020 will expire in 2023.
As we all know, Qualcomm is one of the global leaders in mobile phone chips, but it also has strong capabilities in WiFi chips. Last year, Qualcomm shipped over 4 billion WiFi chips. Through continuous acquisitions and its accumulation in mobile phone chips, such as MU-MIMO and OFDMA introduced in the WiFi 6 standard, which had previously appeared in cellular networks, Qualcomm has products in both routing and mobile ends.
MediaTek has developed rapidly in recent years, achieving great success in 5G mobile phone chips and is also fully seizing the market opportunities in the WiFi 6 chip market. In October of this year, MediaTek released the WiFi 6 wireless connectivity platform Filogic series products, including the Filogic 830 and Filogic 630 chips. Moreover, MediaTek has begun investing in the research and development of the next-generation WiFi 7, and at the recent MediaTek technology summit, it jokingly stated that it would showcase the next-generation WiFi network technology WiFi 7 at CES 2022.
Many enterprises in mainland China are also competing in the WiFi field. It is reported that there are dozens of companies related to WiFi 6 chips in China, and a fierce competition is imminent, mainly concentrated in the IoT WiFi chip sector. Chinese mainland WiFi chip companies include ASR, BK, Hengxuan Technology, Espressif, Spreadtrum, Broadcom Integrated, ZTE, HiSilicon, Newland, Woki, Allwinner, Southern Silicon Valley, Jerry, Speedy, Bright Cow, Gaotuo, Bolu, Rockchip, and Lian Shengde Microelectronics, among others.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning that router terminal manufacturer TP-Link has also begun to assemble a team to enter the smart home WiFi 6 chip market. TP-Link is the largest router manufacturer in China by market share. The entry of terminal router manufacturers like TP-Link may have some impact, as their supply chain mainly includes Qualcomm and MediaTek. Of course, the development difficulty of router chips is greater than that of IoT WiFi chips, and developing them is not an overnight task.
The WiFi wireless RF front-end module is another promising market, mainly dominated by foreign suppliers such as Skyworks and Qorvo, who launched WiFi 6/WiFi 6E FEM (front-end modules) in 2020. Currently, the market share of domestic WiFi 6 RF front-end chips is less than 1%. It is reported that the technical difficulty of Wi-Fi 6 FEM is comparable to that of 5G PA, although the difficulty of modules is not as great as that of 5G PA. Companies that can provide WiFi 6 FEM products domestically include Kangxi Communication, Sanwu Micro, and Zhuosheng Micro, and Sichuan Hexin Microelectronics (Cenchip) also released the first set of 2.4G&5G high-power WiFi 6 FEM chips in October of this year.
Previously, Zhong Lin mentioned in an article discussing domestic RF companies that the current level of domestic WiFi 6 FEM remains at low to medium power, with a significant gap compared to foreign counterparts. However, this sector is very crowded, with nearly 20 domestic WiFi FEM chip companies. The technology roadmap for WiFi FEM is clear: WiFi 4 -> WiFi 5 -> WiFi 6 -> WiFi 6E -> WiFi 7, with each protocol including low, medium, and high power.
The domestic Wi-Fi FEM explosion began in 2020, mainly due to: 1. The market outlook is good; Yole predicts that the Wi-Fi FEM market will exceed $3 billion, about 20 billion RMB, by 2025. 2. There is a shortage of design talent required; there may only be 5-7 R&D talents in China. 3. The capital requirements are relatively low, unlike WiFi main chips that require significant investment without much return.
While WiFi 6 is fiercely competitive, Broadcom, Qualcomm, and MediaTek have already begun to deploy and research WiFi 7 in advance, although products are expected to take 2-3 years to be released, indicating that WiFi 7 will be the next battleground for businesses. However, as mentioned above, the performance of WiFi 7 is so powerful that the technical difficulty is naturally high, and developing WiFi 7 chips is not an easy task.
“Unleashing the Power of Wi-Fi: Enterprise Wi-Fi 6 Predictions 2019-2023” White Paper
“Huawei WiFi 6 White Paper”
Purple Blog “The History of WiFi”
Editor: Lu Dingci
