Broadcom ships one billion Wi-Fi 6 and 6E chips

The is an excerpt from a blog that originally ran on Broadcom.com. Please visit the link to read the full article.

This time last year, the hunger consumers and enterprises had for faster, more efficient Wi-Fi had caught fire, driving us to ship more than 500 million Wi-Fi 6 chips. Twelve months later, this number has doubled, bringing 1 billion Wi-Fi 6 and 6E Broadcom chips to individuals and enterprises across the world.

We always knew the possibilities for the next generation of wireless were endless. But as they say, it takes a village. We are grateful to our customers and partners for believing in our ecosystem of chips and turbocharging the world of Wi-Fi.

The journey to here

Over the last several decades, Broadcom has been at the forefront of Wi-Fi development and the innovation of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E Broadcom chips is no different. While the first volume shipments of Wi-Fi 6 chips started a few years ago, the path to revolutionize wireless communications and connectivity started much earlier than that.

In 2017, Broadcom spoke of the possibilities of Wi-Fi 6—offering six times faster upload speeds, four times faster download speeds, four times better coverage and seven times better battery life than the previous Wi-Fi standard. This pipe dream quickly became a reality. Our partners trusted our vision and robust ecosystem, enabling us to lead the way to launching some of the world’s first Wi-Fi 6 products.

When Wi-Fi 6 chips were first adopted for enterprises and then first-in-class mobile devices, we were convinced our chips would deliver an experience like no other. Operators caught on and these chips became more mainstream—putting them in the hands and homes of millions of people.

This ecosystem of routers, enterprise solutions and smartphones met consumers where they were, but we knew our wireless solutions could bring the industry more with 6 GHz. As early as 2016, our engineers began to explore how we could optimize the 6 GHz band to increase connectivity speeds and improve capacity, when compared to both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi.

Across the globe, momentum for Wi-Fi 6E continues to grow. In the United States, Europe and South Korea millions of devices are already running on 6 GHz. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and a host of countries in the Americas have followed suit by opening the band to Wi-Fi technology. Japan, Australia, Colombia and Mexico are poised to open the band this year.

The spark catches fire

The world of Wi-Fi has already begun to convert devices to support 6 GHz Wi-Fi and adoption has grown at a faster pace than expected.

This year, Wi-Fi 6E has made its way to a wider range of smartphones, including the Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and Plus, and access devices from NETGEAR, TP-Link and Comcast, among others.

This rate of adoption is unprecedented. Not only does this reaffirm the belief our partners have in us, but it underscores the market need for this new wireless experience powered by Wi-Fi 6E.

Read the full blog here:

https://www.broadcom.com/blog/broadcom-ships-one-billion-wi-fi-6-and-6e-chips