Qualcomm launches the first Wi-Fi 7 chip, while Wi-Fi 6 is still rare

In terms of Wi-Fi standards, France is not the most advanced country. Wi-Fi 6, available on most high-end terminals, is just beginning to appear with French operators (Orange and Free still do not have it) and theWi-Fi 6E, which uses the 6 GHz band, has only just been authorized by the authorities. Despite this significant gap between promise and reality, Qualcomm is already laying the groundwork for their successor. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, ​​the founder has just announced the FastConnect 7800, a chip engraved in 14 nm dedicated to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. It supports Wi-Fi 7, although it shouldn’t arrive before 2024.

A first try

Between now and its commercial launch, Wi-Fi 7 should evolve a lot. In fact, this new standard, also stamped 802.11be, should offer speeds of up to 30 Gbit/s. However, the chip announced by Qualcomm does not exceed 5.8 Gbit / s. That’s a lot, but the finalized Wi-Fi 7 can do better. We can deduce that this is a first attempt, before the appearance of much more sophisticated modems in the coming months and years.

The other promise of Wi-Fi 7 is its even lower latency. Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7800, which operates on the 5 Ghz and 6 Ghz bands, will offer sub-2ms latency. The usefulness put forward by its creator concerns in particular the cloud gaming or the metaverse, which need very low latency to operate in the best possible conditions.

Other announcements from Qualcomm

In addition to this very first Wi-Fi 7 chip, Qualcomm took advantage of the MWC in Barcelona to announce a new 5G modem (the X70), capable of reaching 10 Gbit/s. The foundry also unveiled many innovations related to Bluetooth to, for example, allow owners of wireless headphones to listen to lossless music without cables. Finally, Qualcomm also reiterated its intention to accompany Windows towards the ARM transition, a bit like what Apple succeeded with its M1 chips.