New Marvell 4x4 Chip Expands Gigabit Wireless Coverage

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Marvell introduced on Monday its new Marvell Avastar 88W8864 chip, a wireless local area network (WLAN) system-on-chip (SoC) and the industry's first 802.11ac 4x4 solution.

The new Marvell chip is designed to improve the throughput of retail and enterprise access points (APs), service provider gateways, hotspots, video bridges and set-top boxes. Networks equipped with this new wireless solution will offer streaming data of up to 1.3 Gbps using four antennas, not the previous two.

"The 4x4 WLAN SoC configuration is the baseline architecture for best-of-breed enterprise, retail and service provider network infrastructures," the company said. "By combining the advanced 4x4 MIMO solution with Marvell's market-proven beamforming technology and now 802.11ac support, the 88W8864 is poised to further enhance the company’s stronghold in indoor and outdoor APs and also expand its presence in the service provider video market."

News of the 4x4 solution follows the release of Marvell's Avastar 88W8897 802.11ac 2x2 combination radio chip which supports Near Field Communication (NFC), Bluetooth 4.0, mobile MIMO, transmit beamforming and Miracast. The newer chip offers the same support, but with a wider range best suited for retail access points, public hotspots, video bridges and perhaps even large homes that would otherwise need an amplified signal.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/802.11ac-Avastar-88W8864-Beamforming-Marvell-MIMO,19542.html