Several silicon vendors started to unveil WiFi 6 (802.11ax) chips in 2017-2018 such as Broadcom BCM43684, BCM43694 & BCM4375, and Marvell 88W906x.
While NXP launched QorIQ LA1575 programmable wireless SoC with expected 802.11ax support early 2017, AFAIK they did not introduce any specific WiFi 6 chips. But last year, the company used some of its cash to purchase Marvell’s WiFi & Bluetooth business and has now announced the availability of Marvell NXP WiFi 6 chips and solutions which mostly are the ones announced by Marvell in 2017.
NXP Wi-Fi 6 solutions include
- NXP 88W9064 & 88W9068 4×4 and 8×8-stream solutions with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 for home and enterprise access solutions
- NXP 88Q9098 concurrent dual Wi-Fi 6 2×2+2×2 + Bluetooth 5 AEC-Q100 qualified solutions for infotainment and telematics automotive applications
- NXP 88W9098 concurrent dual Wi-Fi 6 2×2+2×2 + Bluetooth 5 solutions for multimedia streaming and consumer access applications
- Unnamed IoT-focused 2×2 WiFi 6 + Bluetooth 5 chip optimized for cost and power
- Ultra-compact (3x4mm) RF front-end solutions that can scale Wi-Fi 6 capabilities from low-to-high-end applications, including 1×1, 2×2, 4×4 and 8×8 MIMO.
NXP 88Q9098/88W9098 WiFi 6 + Bluetooth 5 Chip
We have already covered 88W9064 & 88W9068 in our previous post when it still belonged to Marvell, so let’s focus on 88Q9098 (automotive) and 88W9098 (consumer applications) since we may find it in routers. Note 88Q9098 was first announced in June 2018.
We have basically no info for 88W9098 since there’s no product page, but based on the information above, I believe 88Q9098 should be similar plus automotive certifications, features, and a wider operating temperature range.
88Q9098 comes in three variants:
Key Features:
- Concurrent Dual Wi-Fi operating modes for various automotive applications
- 2×2 IEEE 802.11ax/IEEE 802.11ac
- Support 20/40/80/(80+80) MHz channel bandwidths.
- Uplink & Downlink OFDMA and MU-MIMO
- Instantaneous 0-DFS
- AEC-Q100 grade 2 support (from -40C up to +105C) with external power amplifiers
- 11×11 mm, 148-pin DR-QFN package
You’ll find more details about NXP WiFi 6 solutions on the company’s website.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Motorola/Freescale now NXP finally got some wifi-chip, Marvell is notorious at OSS but Motorola/Freescale are much better in that regard, let’s hope some OSS driver will be supported.