Sanwu Micro may help domestic WIFI6 chips succeed

Making chips is difficult, and making WIFI6 chips is even more difficult.

Sanwuwei previously launched a WIFI6 switch and became the exclusive supplier of a WIFI6 chip platform. Its shipments have reached KK level, but it is far lower than the previously planned 10KK per month. When asked whether it was a problem with the main chip or the market, the reply was that the IoT WIFI6 market has not yet taken off and is expected to explode in the first half of 2021.

Sanwuwei's WIFI6 switch has passed the test on well-known domestic mobile phone flagship devices, and is also the only manufacturer in China that can completely replace Skyworks.

Domestic WIFI6 chips are being actively developed, and some manufacturers have referenced the design of Sanwuwei WIFI6 switches. In order to help domestic WIFI6 chips succeed as soon as possible, Sanwuwei has successively launched a 2.4G WIFI6 FEM to solve the technical problems of the RF front-end of domestic WIFI6 chips.

WIFI6 chips are divided into IoT WIFI6 chips and router WIFI6 chips.

There are only two companies making domestic router WIFI6 chips, Huawei and Sichang Communication; while there are dozens of domestic IoT WIFI6 chip companies. Undoubtedly, the research and development difficulty of router WIFI chips is much higher than that of IoT WIFI chips. This article focuses on IoT WIFI6 chips, and will introduce them from three aspects: IoT WIFI6 chip manufacturers, IoT WIFI6 chip research and development difficulties, and IoT WIFI6 chip research and development solutions.

IoT WIFI6 chip manufacturers

MM research data shows that the global IoT WIFI chip module market size reached US$15.89 billion in 2016, and will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.5% in the next few years. By 2022, the global IoT WIFI chip module market size is expected to reach US$19.72 billion.

According to Gartner's forecast, 72% of all IoT connections will use WIFI and Zigbee transmission technologies by 2025. IDC data shows that global IoT WIFI chip shipments will reach 4.9 billion in 2022.

IoT WIFI6 chips have been put on the market and mass-produced by manufacturers:

Broadcom WIFI6 chip

Broadcom has released three WIFI6 chips: BCM43684, BCM43694 and BCM4375. Among them, BCM43684 is an IoT WIFI6 chip, BCM43694 is a router WIFI6 chip, and BCM4375 is a four-in-one chip compatible with WIFI6.

Broadcom's strongest point is the underlying protocol and algorithm, not the chip hardware technology. I am not optimistic about Broadcom's IoT WIFI6 chip. The subsequent price competition in this market is fierce, and Broadcom will not engage in price wars.

Qualcomm WIFI6 chip

On August 27, 2019, Qualcomm released four WIFI6 (802.11ax) platform solutions in San Francisco, including Networking Pro 1200/800/600/400Platform. The IoT WIFI6 chip model is QCA6391.

With the advanced chip technology and closeness to the market, Qualcomm's IoT WIFI6 chip will occupy high-end applications in the market.

Marvell WIFI6 chip

In 2018, the company launched three WIFI 6 chips: 88W9068, 88W9064 and 88W9064S. Among them, 88W9068 supports 5GHz; 88W9064 supports 5GHz/2.4GHz, integrates Bluetooth 5.0, and is suitable for enterprise and retail access points, operator gateways and fixed wireless services; 88W9064S supports 5GHz/2.4GHz, integrates Bluetooth 5.0, and is suitable for service providers and OTT set-top box markets.

In 2019, NXP Semiconductors (NXP) acquired Marvell's wireless connectivity business for a total value of US$1.76 billion. The acquisition included Marvell's WIFI connectivity business unit, Bluetooth technology and other related businesses.

MTK WIFI6 chip

The focus is always placed at the end of the introduction. MTK WIFI chip has the highest market share in the router market and the Internet of Things market. MTK is the king of cost-effectiveness.

The router's WIFI6 chip model is MT7915DAN, which supports 2x2mimo 2.4G and 2x2mimo 5G. In WIFI6 mode, the maximum rate of 2.4G (40Mhz) is 573Mbps, and the maximum rate of 5G (80Mhz) is 1201Mbps. It does not support 160Mhz bandwidth. So this is an AX1800 wireless router that also supports MU-MIMO and OFDMA.

The MTK IoT WIFI6 chip model is MTK7921, which supports 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz and has been mass-produced.

Difficulties in developing IoT WIFI6 chips

Taiwan's Realtek is the chip supplier with the second largest WIFI market share after MTK, and its WIFI6 chip is still under development.

The development of WIFI6 chips is indeed difficult, and domestic WIFI6 chip companies cannot do without two foreign IP companies, CEVA and Imagination. CEVA can provide 1*1 IP (BB+MAC), and 2*2 IP is planned to be launched at the end of the year; Imagination claims to launch a complete set of WIFI6 solution IP this year, including BB + MAC + PLL + TX/RX + RFFEM.

According to feedback from domestic companies, there are two difficulties in the development of WIFI6 chips: underlying protocol/communication protocol + algorithm, RF front end (PA+LNA+SW)

Compared with WIFI4 and WIFI5, the underlying protocol/communication protocol and algorithm of WIFI6 chip are more complex, and the RF front-end design is much more difficult. The way to solve the underlying protocol/communication protocol is to add more people, understand the protocol standards better, and do more tests. Algorithms are core competitiveness. Like RF front-end design, they cannot be solved by more people. A high level of design is required. If the RF front-end performance does not meet the standards, the WIFI6 chip will not be able to come out. If the modulation does not pursue 1024QAM (WIFI6 standard) and only achieves 256QAM, the difficulty of RF front-end research and development will be greatly reduced, then many domestic companies will be able to develop low-version WIFI6 chips within half a year.

BB is the baseband, which uses the ARM core. MAC (Medium Access Control) is a functional sublayer of the L2 link layer, which interfaces with the L1 physical layer. MAC was first widely used on Ethernet and WIFI interfaces.

A phase-locked loop is a feedback control circuit, also known as a phase-locked loop (PLL). The characteristics of a phase-locked loop are: using an external reference signal to control the frequency and phase of the oscillation signal inside the loop. PLL is an important technical part of WIFI6, but it has not become a technical bottleneck for domestic WIFI6.

Phase-locked loop principle:

Phase-locked loop (PLL) parts:

OSC: Stable input frequency (crystal oscillator)

RDivider: R divider, the phase detector has a maximum detection frequency. When the local oscillator signal frequency is high, it needs to be divided.

PD: Phase detector, which converts the phase difference between the two signals of the R divider and the N divider into voltage. The phase detector not only includes a phase detector, but also a charge pump. In addition to the low-frequency phase difference signal, the phase detector output also has a high-frequency component.

LF: Loop filter (low-pass filtering), removes high-frequency components and provides a clean tuning signal for the VCO.

VCO: voltage-controlled oscillator, voltage-to-frequency converter. Key specification, frequency range: The larger the frequency range, the more flexible the output frequency is, but at the expense of phase noise performance.

IoT WIFI6 chip R&D solution

Thanks to the efforts of chip IP companies, domestic digital chips are looking more and more similar.

The WIFI chip companies in mainland China include: ASR, BK, Espressif, Spreadtrum, Zhongkeweifa, HiSilicon, Nufront, Wuqi, Allwinner, Southern Silicon Valley, Jerry, Speedcom, Liangniu, Gaotuo, Boliu, Rockchip, Lianshengde Microelectronics, etc.

Without differentiation, there is no way out for domestic chips. How to develop and design differentiated domestic IoT WIFI6 chips? The answer can be found from three perspectives: market, product, and technology.

market:

WIFI4 chip market: mainly white appliance market (refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.), module market, lighting market, and smart speakers.

WIFI5 chip market: mainly set-top box market, module market, drone and model aircraft market, game console market, and computer market.

WIFI6 chip market: mainly white goods market (refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.), module market, lighting market, smart speakers, set-top box market, module market, drone and model aircraft market, game console market, and computer market.

product:

2.4G WIFI4 chip: mainly used to transmit data, pictures and audio, requiring low cost, the market expects to improve the performance of RF front-end. The market demand for 2.4G WIFI4 chips accounts for about 90% of WIFI chips, and the three companies with the largest shipments are: Espressif, Southern Silicon Valley, and Spreadtrum.

2.4G+5.8G WIFI5 chip: mainly used for video transmission, the difficulty is the balance between cost and performance. Main shipping companies: MTK, Realtek, market demand is about 15~20KK/M.

2.4G WIFI6 chip: mainly used to transmit data, pictures and audio, and still requires low cost. In the future, 2.4G WIFI6 chip will gradually replace 2.4G WIFI4 chip. WIFI6 can access multiple devices, has strong anti-interference ability, has wake-up function, and lower energy consumption. Therefore, the main demand of the future WIFI market will be 2.4G WIFI6 chip, which is also the main battlefield of domestic chips.

2.4G+5.8GWIFI6 chip: mainly used to transmit videos, the performance requirements will increase, and the market demand share will also increase.

technology:

More and more customers feel that the WIFI RF front-end performance is a pain point, and the RF front-end is also a technical difficulty in the research and development of WIFI6 chips.

Sanwu's tiny package 2.4G WIFI6 FEM can help domestic 2.4G WIFI6 chips to be successfully developed and gain market competitiveness as soon as possible. In terms of performance, it is definitely better than the WIFI6 chip with built-in RF front-end, and the increased cost is 0.1+USD. The larger the volume, the closer it is to 0.1USD. This cost increase is far lower than the R&D cost, market cost and opportunity cost.