Broadcom Launches its First WiFi 7 Chipsets and corresponding SoC

It appears that 2022 might be the year WiFi 7, or 802.11be as it's also known, launches, despite the fact that the specification isn't set to be ratified until 2024. Broadcom has just unveiled its first set of WiFi 7 radios, as well as accompanying SoC and it looks like the new hardware will bring a big jump in performance under the right circumstances. Broadcom's first WiFi 7 SoC will be known as the BCM4916, which sports a quad core ARMv8 processor. It appears to be a custom Broadcom design that's capable of delivering up to 24 DMIPS of performance, but beyond mentioning that it has 1 MB L2 cache and 64 kB L1 cache, Broadcom doesn't go into any specifics.

The Arm based processor is backed up by what Broadcom calls a Dual Issue Runner Network Processor, or DI-XRDP, which is a packet processor that shuffles the data around between the wired and wireless network interfaces. There's also a crypto coprocessor and Broadcom has added support for Arm TrustZone and Secure Boot, with the prior having support for a trusted execution environment. What stands out with regards to the BCM4916 compared to most current router SoCs is the wide arrange of high-speed connectivity options. For starters, it has no less than four PCIe interfaces of unspecified generation, as well as a native 10 Gbps network interface and as well as the option for two more. In addition to this, it has a further option for a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet interface, as well as a typical four port Gigabit switch built in. A pair of USB 3.2 ports are also part of the chip, but these are likely to be 5 Gbps ports. The SoC also has support for DDR3 and DDR4 memory.