U.S.-based Wireless Chipmaker Qorvo Partners With JD Cloud

AsianFin—North Carolina-based semiconductor company in radio frequency (RF) chip technology, Qorvo on April 17 announced the joint development with JD Cloud of a new BE6500 dual-band Wi-Fi 7 router.

It utilizes Qorvo's independent external Front End Module (FEM) product, namely four Qorvo QPF4559 chips. The new built-in RF power amplifier (PA) and RF low noise amplifier (LNA) solution significantly enhances signal transmission power and signal reception sensitivity, greatly improving the coverage range of the new router device.

The Global Wi-Fi Alliance recently announced the completion and release of the certification for the Wi-Fi 7 advanced wireless standard, which will improve connectivity performance for home, office, and industrial devices.

This signifies that in 2024, terminal devices based on the new Wi-Fi 7 standard can be officially launched, potentially driving industry growth.

In a dialogue with TMTPost, Jeff Lin, Senior Marketing Manager of Qorvo's Wireless Connectivity Division in the Asia-Pacific region, said that Wi-Fi 7 chips in China and other regions globally are currently showing two different market forms.

Lin admitted that compared to the dominant position of Wi-Fi 6 products in overseas market, the competition in the Chinese consumer Wi-Fi 7 router terminal market is extremely fierce. Despite China not yet opening the 6G frequency band, as a strong supply chain country, it has attracted many manufacturers to quickly adopt the 6G, demonstrating vast development potential.

Regarding market forecasts, Lin said that although the current shipments of Wi-Fi 7 account for less than 5% of the global market share, according to projections, by 2028, Wi-Fi 7 shipments are expected to surpass Wi-Fi 6, demonstrating strong growth momentum.

Qorvo is a multinational corporation focusing on the design, development, and production of RF integrated circuit products, and is a major supplier of power amplifiers and filters globally. Formed from the merger of TriQuint Semiconductor Corporation and RF Micro Devices (RFMD) in January 2015, Qorvo currently has 8,500 employees worldwide and is one of the Fortune 500 companies in the United States.

According to market research firm Yole, as of 2022, Qorvo's market share in the RF front-end market was approximately 15%, making it a global leader. Lin joined Qorvo in 2016 and is responsible for supporting global Wi-Fi chipset suppliers (reference designs) and Qorvo's connectivity components division in the Asia-Pacific region. Before joining Qorvo, Lin held positions at global communications giants such as Qualcomm, 3COM, Semtech, and WiQuest, gaining rich experience in the fields of Wi-Fi and chip semiconductors.

Lin said that Wi-Fi technology evolution from 802.11B/G/N to Wi-Fi 4, Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, and now Wi-Fi 7 has brought increasing bandwidth and throughput. Today, Wi-Fi is not only used for consumer applications such as internet browsing and video streaming but also extends to industrial scenarios, including smart infrastructure, high-definition monitors, AR/VR wearable devices, as well as Industry 4.0, smart factories, and interconnected electric vehicles. As the next-generation wireless communication technology standard, Wi-Fi 7 introduces new technologies such as 4K QAM modulation, MLO carrier aggregation, and 320MHz bandwidth, bringing higher data transmission rates, lower latency, and stronger connection stability, thus innovating users' network experience.

Specifically, Wi-Fi 7 has upgraded from 1024-QAM to 4K QAM, encoding 12-bit data per OFDM subcarrier, resulting in a 20% increase in peak PHY data rate compared to 1024-QAM. MLO carrier aggregation allows devices to transmit and receive data simultaneously through multiple links to increase throughput, reduce latency, and improve reliability. This essentially involves wireless link aggregation, i.e., binding connections distributed over two or three frequency bands in the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands, providing users with higher speeds and stability. Furthermore, since Wi-Fi 7 opens up the 6GHz frequency band, its maximum channel bandwidth reaches 320MHz, doubling that of the previous Wi-Fi 6. Additionally, Wi-Fi 7 can support up to 16 antennas for transmission and reception (16x16), doubling the number of antennas compared to the previous generation standard, which helps achieve transmission speeds and throughput of up to 46Gbps, 4.8 times that of Wi-Fi 6.

Lin admitted to TMTPost that compared to the Wi-Fi 7 upgrade, Wi-Fi 6 is an important milestone in the development of wireless network technology, with its standard evolution and performance improvement being epoch-making. Wi-Fi 7 further optimizes and enhances

Wi-Fi 6, providing a smoother and faster networking experience. It can be expected that future Wi-Fi standards may draw on cellular communication technology for more refined specifications, leading to improved bandwidth utilization efficiency and providing users with better experiences.

Regarding the Wi-Fi 7 market in China, Lin believes that Wi-Fi 7 devices face fierce competition in the Chinese mainland market, with product prices continually dropping. As a result, the entire entry-level Wi-Fi 7 router market is presented in the price range of 200-500 RMB, putting enormous pressure on upstream suppliers. Subsequently, with the formation of the Wi-Fi 7 certification standard globally, this will directly lead to a "polarization" in the Wi-Fi 7 market development in China, the United States, and other countries.

Regarding the current global semiconductor recovery situation, Lin said that the semiconductor industry involves too many industries, with traditional semiconductor design companies possibly declining, but fields such as AI and automotive are still on the rise. Looking at communications, the Wi-Fi market remains stable and somewhat optimistic, as everyone uses devices related to Wi-Fi and mobile phones, so demand and sales still exist.

“Wi-Fi is not on the decline. At least from what I've seen this year, the market situation is generally stable. If the Wi-Fi 7 market performs better this year, it may show a trend of steady growth. At least the communication industry won't decline this year,” Lin noted.

Many people are still hesitant to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7, but Lin believes that this does not affect its many advantages. Due to Wi-Fi's backward compatibility feature, upgrading to the new generation Wi-Fi standard will not render existing networking devices unusable. For home users, there may not be a significant leap in internet speed from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 7; however, in shopping malls, schools, or some large public areas, upgrading Wi-Fi to utilize new features becomes crucial: Wi-Fi 7 can provide more equitable bandwidth allocation through gateways, increase throughput and bandwidth, and improve network efficiency.

The failure to use the network is often due to too many people asking for the network password in public places such as restaurants. Wi-Fi 7 can ensure that each user can obtain relatively equal network resources, avoiding network congestion issues, Lin pointed out. Despite the widespread application of 5G cellular communication, Wi-Fi has been popularized for over twenty years and is also an essential function for users.

Looking ahead, Lin emphasized that China is the world's largest manufacturing country and has significant influence in standard formulation, adoption, and market share.