Networking chipset vendors, including Qualcomm Atheros, Broadcom, Marvell Technology and MediaTek have launched new Wi-Fi chips or chipset platforms supporting MU-MIMO (multi-user multi-input multi-output) technology, making MU-MIMO a standard for Wi-Fi chips, according to Digitimes Research.
With the exception of Quantenna and Qualcomm Atheros, most chipset suppliers failed to roll out MU-MIMO Wi-Fi chips in 2014 as they were either producing IC parts for wearable devices or IoT applications, Digitimes Research noted.
However, Broadcom, Marvell and MediaTek all released Wi-Fi chips supporting MU-MIMO in early 2015, while expanding the bandwidth to 160MHz channels compared to the 80MHz channels used by other vendors including Qualcomm Atheros previously. Qualcomm Atheros managed to narrow the gap by releasing its 160MHz chips during Computex 2015.
Since most chipset vendors are now able to roll out quad-stream, 160MHz-channel Wi-Fi chips, the competition will then shift to the development of 8-stream Wi-Fi parts, Digitimes Research commented.