With standard Wi-Fi, clients are served sequentially; during this time, only one device is sending and receiving information, thus only a small portion of network capacity is being used. The accumulation of these sequential events creates a drop in throughput and capacity as more devices join the network. MU-MIMO enables simultaneous transmission to groups of clients, making more efficient use of available Wi-Fi network capacity and speeding up transmissions.
Qualcomm Atheros' algorithm-based technology is designed to dynamically adapt to changes in channel conditions, device movement and application requirements to maximize throughput and device performance. In order to extract the maximum benefits of MU-MIMO, it must be used on both sides of the connection. Qualcomm is making available a range of products incorporating the new technology.
The QCA9980 and QCA9982 for routers and gateways and the QCA9990 and QCA9992 for enterprise access points will start sampling this quarter. The receiver hardware also is built into Qualcomm VIVE 11ac products for smartphones, tablets, connected TVs and other media devices. This includes MU-MIMO on all of Qualcomm Atheros’ latest 11ac clients and support on the Snapdragon 805 and 801 mobile processors. Qualcomm will also offer the QCA9378 for connected TVs, set-top boxes and other entertainment devices, and the QCA6574 for automotive applications.
