Well, are you talking about: * 11n 4x4 MIMO? * 11ac Multi-user MIMO (where you map stations to separate spatial streams?) * other beamforming/diversity stuff?
Adrian On 17 January 2012 11:51, Galen <[email protected]> wrote: > As far as I know, Quantenna is the only producer of 4x4:4 chipsets. Some > other companies have "4x4" chipsets that are 4x4:3 and simply use the > additional antenna for beamforming, diversity, etc. > > Historically, Atheros has begun chest-beating about chipsets significantly in > advance to their release. I think the AR9003 platform started being talked > about it in general term around 18 months prior to general market > availability of AR9003 products. > > I suspect you will have a very long wait if you are counting on Atheros (now > Qualcomm) for 4x4 solutions. Interestingly, Qualcomm did announce 4x4:4 > solutions a few years ago, but nothing came of them. They since acquired > Atheros, so I suspect their internal 802.11 products were very unimpressive > or even deeply flawed. > > The reality is that 4x4:4 solutions really provide diminishing improvements > relative to cost. Every additional spatial stream causes a more than linear > increase in DSP complexity, a linear increase in radio/amplifier cost, a > slightly more than linear increase in power consumption > (radio/amplifier+DSP), and an increase in PCB footprint. And for all this > extra hassle and cost, you get a typically less-than-linear increase in > throughput. > > The gains from jumping from 1x1:1 to 2x2:2 were huge, each increment above > that is simply a lot less bang for your buck. > > I'm not saying it'll never happen, but the deck is somewhat stacked against > 4x4:4 solutions. I think 802.11ac will very quickly emerge as the preferred > means of adding bandwidth, with 4x4:4 being something that continues to > slowly grow and only becomes seen much in the wild when 802.11ac hits. > > Note that Quantenna has already updated their 4x4:4 chipsets to support > 802.11ac. > > -Galen > > On Jan 17, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Ben Greear wrote: > >> I've some customers asking for 4x4 MIMO support for our wifi testing >> gear (which requires the ath9k virtualization features). >> >> Anyone know if Atheros is going to be offering a 4x4 MIMO solution >> anytime soon? >> >> Thanks, >> Ben >> >> -- >> Ben Greear <[email protected]> >> Candela Technologies Inc http://www.candelatech.com >> _______________________________________________ >> ath9k-devel mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel > > _______________________________________________ > ath9k-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel _______________________________________________ ath9k-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel
