Broadcom is supplying its Wi-Fi 6E chip BCM4389 to Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra smartphone, the company said.
The S21 Ultra is the first ever phone to support Wi-Fi 6E.
Wi-Fi 6E adds 6GHz spectrum to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax). This allows Wi-Fi 6E to support up to 2.4Gbps speed, double that of Wi-Fi 6’s 1.2Gbps.
Broadcom’s BCM4389 combines Wi-Fi 6E with Bluetooth 5 architecture.
Up to 1.2 GHz of new Wi-Fi spectrum will be allocated in the 6 GHz band, which can support up to seven 160 MHz channels, the company said.
This will allow the chip to offer faster remote work, education, remote healthcare and gaming in devices.
The chip also has tri-band simultaneous architecture, the background scan radio for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It also supports Bluetooth connections with wireless ear phones and speakers. This allows connection between devices stay stable in crowded areas such as the subway.
Broadcom said it had supplied Wi-Fi chips for the Galaxy S10, the world’s first Wi-Fi 6 smartphone, back in 2019. Since then, around 500 million devices have transferred to Wi-Fi 6, the company said.
Galaxy S21 Ultra will similarly lead the shift to Wi-Fi 6E, Broadcom added.
In December, Qualcomm launched its first mobile application processor that supports Wi-Fi 6E, the Snapdragon 888.
So far, only the US and South Korea has opened the use of the 6GHz spectrum. The UK, Europe, Chile, Brazil and the UAE are expected to follow suit this year.
