bitswrt NHX53X2 WiFi 7 system-on-module features Qualcomm IPQ5332 SoC

bitswrt NHX53X2 is a WiFi 7 system-on-module (SoC) powered by a Qualcomm IPQ5332 quad-core Cortex-A53 SoC and equipped with the QCN6274 commercial grade WiFi 7 chipset.

The IPQ5332 processor looks to be the little brother of the IPQ9574 quad-core Arm Cortex-A73 processor found in the AL02 WiFi 7 reference router board from Qualcomm. The module comes with up to 3GB RAM, 1GB NAND flash, and exposes plenty of I/Os with multiple 2.5GbE interfaces, 10GbE, PCIe Gen 3.0, USB 3.0, GPIOs, and more.

bitswrt NHX53X2-V01 specifications:

• SoC – Qualcomm IPQ5332 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 at 1.5 GHz
• WiFi 7 chipset – Qualcomm QCN6274
• NPU – 12-threaded network processing unit (NPU) Ubi32 @ 1.5 GHz (likely part of Qualcomm IPQ5332, but public info is sparse)
• System Memory – 1GB (option up to 3GB) 16/32-bit DDR4 at 2133 MT/s
• Storage – 8MB NOR flash, 128MB (option up to 1GB) NAND flash, 128Kbit EEPROM
• WLAN interfaces
  • On-board 2×2 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n/ax/be, max 27dBm per chain
  • On-board 2×2 5GHz 802.11a/n/ac/ax/be, max 26dBm per chain
  • On-board 2×2 6GHz 802.11a/n/ac/ax/be, max 26dBm per chain
  • 2412MHz-2484MHz and 5.1 GHz to 5.9 GHz, simultaneous dual-band
  • 2.4GHz: 5MHz, 10MHz, 20MHz, and 40MHz bandwidth
  • 5GGhz: 20MHz, 40MHz, 80MHz, and 160MHz bandwidth
  • 6GHz: 20MHz, 40MHz, 80MHz, 160MHz, and 320MHz bandwidth
  • Peak PHY rates
    • 6GHz: 5764.8Mbps
    • 5GHz: 2474Mbps
    • 2.4GHz: 688.2Mbps
• Ethernet – 4x 2.5GbE, 1x 10GbE
• “Expansion”
  • eMMC/SD/SDIO
  • 1x 10Gbps USXGMII/SGMII+ (I suppose it’s different from the 10GbE above)
  • PCIe/USB
    • 1x USB 3.0/USB 2.0 interface
    • 1x 2-lane PCIe 3.0 and 1x 1-lane PCIe 3.0 and 1x USB 2.0 OR
    • 3x 1-lane PCIe3 .0 and 1x USB 2.0 OR
    • 1x 2-lane PCIe 3.0 and 1x USB 3.0 OR
    • 2x 1-lane PCIe 3.0 and 1xUSB 3.0
  • Audio – I2S/TDM/ PDM
  • GPIOs, UART, PWM
• Misc – Power LED
• Supply voltage – 6.5V-16V
• Dimensions – 74x48mm
• Certification – RoHS Compliance
• Temperature Range – Operating: -40ºC to 70ºC; storage : -40ºC to 90ºC
• Humidity, non-condensing – Operating: 5% to 95%; storage: up to 90%

There’s also an NHX53X2-V04 model with exactly the same features minus support for 6GHz WiFi, but offering 5GHz 4×4 MIMO instead.

The NHX53X2 would be soldered on a carrier board like the BXW1800-V05 from the company with five Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, mini PCIe and M.2 expansion sockets, a USXGMII connector, some USB ports, and more.

The company says the WiFi 7 system-on-module runs OpenWrt with Linux kernel 5.4, and the solution supports features such as secure boot, LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check) for both TX and RX for increased wireless coverage, and Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) to “reduce power consumption and improves Band Edge performance”. It’s supposedly possible to access the documents, HDK, SDK, and debug notes by requesting a developer account on the company’s website. As a side note, initial support for the Qualcomm IPQ5332 SoC was just added to Linux 6.4.

I don’t have pricing and availability information, and the product page and website as a whole do not exactly inspire confidence since the photos don’t seem to match the new WiFi 7 module, and the company does not update it often, as for instance, the latest news is from 2019… They do however list team members, an address in Shenzhen, and ways to contact them by email and WeChat/phone.

Thanks to TLS for the tip.

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