everything RF interviewed Larry Olivas, the Head of Marketing for Wireless Connectivity Solutions at NXP Semiconductors. In this interview, we learn more about their newly released Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band SoC and about the Wi-Fi 6 market. Larry Olivas and his team are focused on driving Wi-Fi solutions that address Access, Auto and IoT/Industrial segments. He is an accomplished leader with deep experience in building connectivity businesses and platform-based solutions with over 25 years of industry experience.
Q. Can you tell us about the Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band SoC that NXP has recently released?
Larry Olivas: The CW641 Wi-Fi 6E Tri-band SOC from NXP is a high performance 4x4 device that operates in the 2.4, 5 GHz and the newly available 6 GHz band and is targeted at Service Provider Gateways and Access Points. It supports 160 MHz bandwidth, thereby enabling peak PHY rates of 4.8 Gbps and user data rates of greater than 4Gbps. CW641 supports full Multi-User capability allowed in Wi-Fi 6/6E, permitting simultaneous Wi-Fi sessions at the same time for ultra-low latency.
Pairing multi-gig data rates with low latency, infrastructure networks designed with the CW641 are ready for newer innovative applications like cloud gaming, AR/VR, 8K streaming etc. All of these are secured by state-of-the-art WPA3 encryption. In addition, CW641 supports newer power save schemes that allow more IoT client devices connected to it move to lower power battery operation
Q. What is Wi-Fi 6/6E and how is it different from the existing Wi-Fi technology? What are its advantages over existing Wi-Fi technologies?
Larry Olivas: Wi-Fi 6/6E in addition to supporting higher data rates, supports Multi User features which allow for simultaneous Wi-Fi sessions from the same Access Point at the same time, versus a single session at a time as with previous versions of Wi-Fi. This is enabled by two underlying technologies namely Multi User MIMO also known as MU MIMO - which is multiplexing in the spatial domain and OFDMA – which is multiplexing in the frequency domain. This ability to partition available bandwidth on a high data rate link into multiple, simultaneous sessions reduces latency/lag significantly thereby enabling faster application response times. Wi-Fi 6 also supports a newer power save scheme called Target Wake Time (TWT), that allow more IoT client devices connected to it move to lower power battery operation by allowing them to schedule sleep/wake cycles.
Wi-Fi 6 operates in 2.4 & 5 GHz bands (Wi-Fi 5 supported 5 GHz band only and implemented introduced limited Multi User support, namely MU MIMO in downlink direction only). On top of the significant enhancements delivered by Wi-Fi 6 over previous versions, Wi-Fi 6E adds support for the newly opened 6 GHz spectrum band, which opens up to 1.2 GHz of clean, new spectrum to further the growth of Wi-Fi in future, addressing the problem of current spectrum in the 2.4 & 5 GHz band getting increasingly crowded as a result of Wi-Fi’s phenomenal success in becoming the access technology of choice for billions of users and devices.
Q. What are some applications that can benefit from Wi-Fi 6/6E?
Larry Olivas: Wi-Fi 6/6E in-addition to supporting higher data rates supports Multi User features which allow for simultaneous Wi-Fi sessions from the same Access Point at the same time versus a single session at a time in previous versions of Wi-Fi. This is enabled by two underlying technologies namely Multi User MIMO also known as MU MIMO - which is multiplexing in the spatial domain and OFDMA – which is multiplexing in the frequency domain. This ability to partition available bandwidth on a very high data rate link into multiple, simultaneous sessions reduces latency/lag significantly thereby making Wi-Fi6/6E ideal for high bandwidth applications that need faster application response times and reduced lag like cloud gaming, AR/VR etc. This high bandwidth pipe with the ability to apportion the bandwidth into application specific parallel sessions, also fits well with future applications like 8K streaming and the expansion in Wi-Fi connected device count in homes.
Q. What are the synergies between 5G & Wi-Fi 6?
Larry Olivas: Wi-Fi 6 and 5G are complementary technologies, that will work together or coexist in many applications, elevating user experiences and enabling newer, innovative applications. A significant percentage of 5G traffic is expected to be offloaded to Wi-Fi networks.
Q. Can you tell us more about NXP's product portfolio for Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E?
Larry Olivas: NXP’s Wi-Fi6/6E portfolio is targeted at three vertical segments namely Access (comprising of infrastructure products like Service Provider Gateways & Access Points), IoT and Automotive. Products aimed at the Access segment feature 4x4 support for higher data rates whereas products for Auto and IoT markets support popular 2x2 and 1x1 configurations in combo chipsets with integrated Bluetooth.
Q. When do you feel this technology will become mainstream?
Larry Olivas: Wi-Fi 6 has already become mainstream in infrastructure products (most new Access Points and Service Provider Gateways support Wi-Fi 6), high end mobile phones, PCs, leading game consoles etc. and is gaining rapid traction in automotive and IoT.
Q. What is NXP's roadmap when it comes to products for Wi-Fi 6?
Larry Olivas: Today, NXP provides a portfolio of Wi-Fi 6 products targeted at Access, Auto and IoT segments. With the introduction of our first Wi-Fi 6E device (CW641) targeted at laying the infra structure to support the newly opened 6 GHz band, NXP looks forward to bringing the benefits of Wi-Fi 6E to Automotive and IoT products in future.
Click here for more information about the NXP Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band SoC.
