While Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are still new to many consumers out there, Wi-Fi 7 is already upon us. Even though the standards for Wi-Fi 7 – which is expected to be based upon IEEE 802.11be – have not yet been finalized, that does not stop Qualcomm from coming out with a chip featuring the new Wi-Fi technology.
Claimed to be the world’s first Wi-Fi 7 commercial solution, the new FastConnect 7800 chip supports Wi-Fi 7 multi-link operations including the High Band Simultaneous Multi-Link that allows the combined usage of two Wi-Fi radios in 5 or 6GHz spectrums to deliver one massive data pipe. In terms of performance, Qualcomm said that the chip can deliver a peak speed of up to 5.8Gbps through a single 320Mhz or paired 160MHz channel.
If the 6GHz spectrum is not available, the chip can still reach up to 4.3Gbps by connecting through multiple links of the 5GHz spectrum. Alongside the huge throughput speed, Qualcomm also said that the FastConnect 7800 chip is able to provide sustained latency of under 2ms.
At the same time, the FastConnect 7800 has also been designed to deliver Bluetooth 5.3 and Bluetooth LE Audio connectivity. Being a Qualcomm product, it also supports various wireless audio technology suites from the company including Snapdragon Sound and aptX.
Furthermore, Qualcomm noted that the chip allows Bluetooth devices to be paired up to two times faster and consumes 30% to 50% less power than its predecessor. The company has already kicked off the sampling phase for FastConnect 7800 and expected it to appear in commercial devices within the second half of 2022.
