Broadcom Extends 5G WiFi Leadership with New 802.11ac Chips for Enterprise and Wireless Cloud Networks

Enterprise networks are on the cusp of a new mobile computing era in which tablets and smartphones will be ubiquitous in the workplace, said Rajiv Ramaswami, executive vice president and general manager of Broadcom's Infrastructure and Networking Group. Broadcom is at the forefront of developing the latest wireless technologies for the enterprise, delivering the connectivity capabilities needed to meet the growing demands of an unwired workforce.

According to a recent enterprise survey conducted by analyst firm Infonetics, employees around the world are replacing the use of desktops and laptops with smartphones and tablets, and IT departments are scrambling to connect those devices. As the number of mobile devices and the deployment of cloud based enterprise networks continue to scale at a dramatic rate, IT managers must reconsider how they provision, secure and control enterprise computing resources and information access.

About 5G Wi-Fi
Increased reliance on wireless networks, the explosion of video consumption and growing number of wireless devices are all putting tremendous stress on legacy 802.11a/b/g/n networks. With new innovations that allow for more reliable coverage, 5G WiFi addresses these challenges, allowing mobile device users to stream digital content between devices faster, and simultaneously connect more wireless devices to home and enterprise networks, while conserving battery power.

New Features Optimized for Enterprise
Bandwidth-intensive content in the enterprise, such as video conferencing, and customer relationship management (CRM) applications, require speeds that rival Gigabit Ethernet and compatibility with centralized wired Gigabit speed networks.

The 2.4/5 GHz single-chip MAC/PHY/Radio BCM43460 is ideal for Enterprise and Carrier class access points, branch office routers and business class integrated services routers. New features such as Broadcom's revolutionary explicit and implicit transmit beam-forming technology significantly extends the range, coverage and network efficiency of Enterprise wireless networks, particularly in single antenna devices such as smartphones.

The new Enterprise focused airtime fairness feature enables better performance through its support for a denser environment of mixed speed Wi-Fi devices. Advanced spectrum analysis features combine in-depth RF analysis with real-time WLAN information for real-time trouble¬shooting of performance problems. This feature is critical to Enterprise operators for deep monitoring of interference in the network, resulting in more reliable, consistent wireless service. State-of-the-art security is provided by industry standardized system support for WPA, WPA2, hardware accelerated AES encryption/decryption TKIP and IEEE 802.1X.

End-to-End Unified Networking
Broadcom's integrated FASTPATH® Unified Wireless Switching (UWS) and Unified Access Point (UAP) software with 5G WiFi device delivers a fully integrated solution for wireless LAN controllers, unified switches and access points. By combining its industry-leading wireless LAN (WLAN) silicon, switch silicon and networking software, Broadcom provides a complete platform for OEMs to deliver a unified wireless network solution. This highly integrated, low power enterprise WLAN solution enables seamless mobility around the office while delivering the same network management, scalability, security, performance and cost advantages of a wired network.

Market Drivers
• Exponential growth forecasted in Enterprise mobile device deployment. Analysts tout mobility as the overriding trend in 2012 Enterprise networks(1)
• Mobile content consumption has created a need for faster and more reliable ways to access content across devices anytime, anywhere(1)
• Bandwidth-intensive content in the Enterprise requires Gigabit wireless connectivity speeds

Key Features
• Dual-band (2.4 and 5 GHz) IEEE 802.11ac draft 3 x 3 compliant MAC/PHY/Radio complete SoC
• Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology doubles spectral efficiency
• Fully integrated dual-band radio transceiver supports 3 x 3 antennas for date rates up to 1.3 Gbps
• Embedded hardware acceleration enables increased system performance and significant reduction in host-CPU utilization in access point configurations
• Airtime fairness for most efficient use of channel time in dense mixed speed client environments
• Integrated FASTPATH UAP software provides complete turnkey 11ac solution

Availability
The BCM43460 is now sampling with production volume slated for the second half of 2012.