Quantenna claims 1st chipset for future IEEE802.11ac Gigabit WiFi standard

Fabless WiFi chip supplier Quantenna, based in Fremont, CA, has announced what they claim is the first availability of a chipset and reference design for the forthcoming 802.11ac addition to the IEEE WiFi Standard. IEEE 802.11ac, which promises transmission speeds of at least 1 Gbps, is one of several projects of the IEEE 802.11 Working Group. The group has scheduled final ratification in December of 2013.

Quantenna says that by using a 4x4 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) design, they have been able to develop a 2 Gbps wireless router reference design. The company's press release states that Quantenna optimized their solution for a variety of retail consumer electronics products including wireless routers, access points, and high-end consumer electronics devices.The QAC2300 is a two-chip solution that couples the new  4x4 MIMO digital baseband chip for 802.11ac with Quantenna’s QT2518B radio frequency (RF) chip, which already supports 802.11ac.

Quantenna's QAC2300-RDK reference design supports the future IEEE 802.11ac Gigabit WiFi standard

Quantenna has developed  the QAC2300-RDK reference design to support the current draft of the IEEE 802.11ac standard, but will make any adjustments necessary to conform to final specification. The company is making the kit available to its early access customers, along with the schematics, layout, and a set of design guidelines. The reference design is dual-mode, dual-band, enabling concurrent operation of 5 GHz 802.11ac along with 2.4 GHz 802.11n, with PCI-e or dual Reduced Gigabit Media Independent (RGMII) interfaces.