Wi-Fi ICs

Different Requirements for Wi-Fi ICs

Depending on how the layers of a protocol stack need to be integrated on the target hardware, QUALCOMM offers different IC solutions. Radio ICs cover only the lower layers PHY and MAC (layer 1+2) of the protocal stack. These ICs require an additional MCU or processor that handles higher layers e.g. TCP/IP and the application. For connectivity to the host the customer can chose between different interfaces e.g. USB, PCIe, SDIO, SPI or UART.

Another Wi-Fi IC type is named SoC (System on Chip), which integrates also an application processor and therefore eliminates the need of an external MCU or processor as the complete application code and stack are running on a single chip. For high-end applications, QUALCOMM offers also Network Processors with multiple CPU-Cores that support clock rate more than 1GHz. This multi core approach allows the separation of network and application processing on different cores. Radio ICs can be connected via PCIe, USB or SDIO.

Samples Contacts News