The next batch of computers that we will see in a few months will have support for the new WiFi 7 standard. That is why the first chips in charge of delivering this technology are already ready for it. So Mediatek has just presented its news in this regard at Computex. He has done it in the form of his MediaTek Filologic 380 and 880. Let’s see, therefore, what capabilities are expected for these chips. Which we are going to see in many laptops in 2023.
One of the smartest moves by Mediatek, famous for its mobile processors, has been the creation of WiFi radios as an alternative to Intel’s. And his bet for the future is to bet on WiFi 7. The new generation standard promises to be another quantitative leap in terms of the speed of local wireless networks. This will allow the use of applications that were previously only possible with a cable. As is the case with cloud gaming and high-quality 4K streaming without cables and without compressions of any kind.
New MediaTek Filologic
The Chinese company has just presented two new chips compatible with WiFi 7 for different devices at Computex. The first of them is the MediaTek Filologic 380 that will be mounted on laptops, WiFi expansion modules and motherboards and whose characteristics are the following:
- Manufactured under TSMC’s 6nm node
- Out-of-the-box support for several key technologies introduced in WiFi 7 such as: 4096-QAM, 320 MHz, MRU, and MLO. The latter with speeds of up to 6.5 Gbps.
- Up to 5 Gbps on a single channel.
- Support for 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz bandwidths.
- External 2×2 radios with simultaneous dual band capability can be integrated.
- Support for Bluetooth 5.2 with LE.
At the moment there is no device that has integrated it, since it is a recently presented chip. Although due to the good relations with AMD, we assume that the future laptops with AMD Ryzen that we will see on the market during 2023 will include this chip in order to expand its capabilities in terms of wireless connectivity.
The second chip is not for PC, but for routers
As for the Mediatek Filologic 880, it is not a chip that we are going to see in our PCs as it is designed for routers and access points. Its main novelty is the fact that it is what we call a SmartNIC. By bringing inside a processor based on four cores Cortex A72 and a neural processor for managing network packets. As well as including some I/O interfaces. Therefore, it is a processor in itself that gives the routers that equip it the capabilities of a complete computer.
- Manufactured under TSMC’s 6nm node
- Out-of-the-box support for several key technologies introduced in WiFi 7 such as: 4096-QAM, 320 MHz, MRU, and MLO.
- Up to 10 Gbps on a single channel.
- Support for OFDMA RU, MU-MIMO and MBSSID.
- It includes a hardware encryption engine, EIP-197. Which is used to speed up IPSec, SSL/TLS, DTLS (CAPWAP), SRTP and MACsec
- Support for alternate I/O interfaces: 5 Gbps USB, 10 Gbps PCI-Express for high-speed peripherals. Apart from low speed interfaces like UART, SD, SPI, PWM, GPIO and OTP
