On the evening of June 9, 2021, the sixth "chip everyone says / I say IC" industrial salon organized by Zhangjiang High Tech and simu research was held in Zhangjiang Science City. During the salon, Zhang Pengfei, chairman and CEO of Broadcom integration, brought a wonderful speech with the theme of "Internet of things reconstruction # talk about Wi Fi # 6". The salon has attracted the participation of middle and senior management of well-known enterprises such as Huawei, Huahong Hongli, Ziguang zhanrui, pingtouge, Intel and so on.
During the on-site communication, Zhang Pengfei had a heated discussion with the on-site audience on industry hotspots, industrial opportunities, enterprise strategies and other issues.
Zhang Pengfei, chairman and CEO of Broadcom integration
Mr. Zhang Pengfei is the chairman and CEO of Broadcom integration, with more than 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. Mr. Zhang Pengfei studied in the Department of electronic engineering of Tsinghua University. In 1994, he went to the United States to engage in post doctoral research at UCLA. He once co founded the integrated circuit design company resonext communications with his partners in the United States, and was successfully acquired by RF micro devices, a listed company in the United States. In 2005, after Zhang Pengfei returned home, he established Broadcom integration in Shanghai Zhangjiang High Tech Park, focusing on the R & D and sales of wireless communication integrated circuit chips, providing low-power and high-performance wireless RF and microprocessor SOC chips for customers at home and abroad, including many world-famous brands, and providing complete solutions for Intelligent Transportation and the Internet of things. In April 2019, Broadcom integration was listed on the A-share main board.
The following is the content of Mr. Zhang Pengfei's wonderful speech compiled by xinmou research.
Zhang Pengfei:
Everyone is familiar with Wi Fi. At least one device on each hand uses Wi Fi. In the past two years, with the launch of Wi Fi # 6 technology, many terminal products have been upgraded to Wi Fi # 6, and Wi Fi # 6 has also attracted the attention of the media and news. Today, I'd like to talk about Wi Fi} 6 and its new technology upgrades, new application scenarios and new investment opportunities.
I will expand it in the following points:1. Origin of Wi Fi technology; 2. Five application bottlenecks of Wi Fi # 5; 3. Wi Fi # 6 nine major technology upgrades; 4. Compare Wi Fi # 6 and 5g; 5. Design challenge of Wi Fi # 6 chip; 6. The rise of Wi Fi industry; 7. Forecast of the scale of Wi Fi market; 8. Broadcom integrated Wi Fi products.
Origin of Wi Fi Technology
The electronic information industry has developed for more than 50 years and created many products that have changed the world. Computers and mobile phones are the two most representative products. The important supporting technology behind this is transmission and connection.
We use more than one wireless transmission protocol every day, and each mobile phone contains at least three protocols: cellular network, Wi Fi and Bluetooth. There are three important dimensions to measure wireless transmission technology: distance, bandwidth and battery life. From a technical point of view, there is no way to achieve the extreme of these three dimensions, even if the cost will be very high. This is why there are three wireless transmission protocols in mobile phones. Cellular network chooses optimized distance, Wi Fi chooses optimized bandwidth, and Bluetooth chooses low power consumption.
Since 1999, WLAN has had Wi Fi wireless communication protocol standard. And after a long time of development, before Wi Fi # 6, it experienced five generations of technology development. The main theme is to improve the amount of data transmitted per unit time. For example, the third generation of Wi Fi 802.11a and 802.11g protocols can transmit mail; The fourth generation Wi Fi protocol allows the device to surf the Internet freely, and the fifth generation Wi Fi protocol 802.11ac protocol allows the device to play video smoothly. With the upgrading of technology, more and more users use Wi Fi, and Wi Fi has begun to succeed in industry and commerce. User bottlenecks have also emerged.
Five application bottlenecks of Wi Fi # 5
Let's start with a typical Wi Fi application scenario. In an office environment, there is an AP, which can be a router, a hotspot or a gateway. Many devices in the office are connected to the outside Internet through ap. An AP and all the devices connected to it form a BSS. The devices connected to the AP are called sta. In a BSS, there is an AP. When all STAS access the AP at a certain time point, they need to grab the wireless transmission medium through competitive means to connect to the Internet. Two adjacent BSSS are called OBSS.
After understanding these, we can find out what technical bottlenecks exist in Wi Fi technology before the arrival of Wi Fi} 6.
(1) The coexistence of multiple devices leads to serious congestion
With the wide application of Wi Fi, more and more STAS are connected to an AP in a BSS, and the probability of each sta accessing the AP is reduced. In fact, in a BSS, if a channel utilization reaches 75%, it has reached saturation. Add another sta and a serious carton will happen. OBSS also interferes with each other.
(2) The proportion of short frame data is too high
When AP transmits sta data, it needs to package and send the data. This process will generate part of the overhead of management and control in order to make effective and secure data connections. Only the more effective data, the higher the utilization of the transmitted media. Usually, we use Wi Fi to send short messages, which is not much effective data. Only when 4K and 8K messages are sent can there be a large amount of valid data. In this case, the utilization of wireless media in the process of grouping is very, very low.
(3) Serious shortage of spectrum resources
We use 2.4GHz, which is the most. Even with a minimum bandwidth of 20MHz, there are only three available channels. If 40MHz bandwidth is used, only one channel can be selected in the 2.4GHz band. In terms of frequency resources, 2.4GHz is very difficult to use. For example, for 802.11ap protocol, if 160MHz bandwidth is used, even in 5GHz band, only two channels can be used. In many cases, the congestion is caused by insufficient channels.
(4) Low power consumption
There are more and more users of the Internet of things. A very important appeal of the application of the Internet of things is to reduce power consumption. In the Wi Fi industry, attention to low power consumption is still not enough. Today's electronic devices can change batteries once a year. It has been done very well. When the era of the Internet of things comes, assuming that there are 100 such devices at home, you have to change two batteries every week, which is very stressful for users. Therefore, delaying battery life is a very important challenge.
(5) Outdoor long distance
Wi Fi is an indoor transmission protocol. Why do we do it outdoors? Now, with the advent of the Internet of things, the demand for outdoor scenes increases. For example, security monitoring, leisure and entertainment facilities, we need more reliable outdoor transmission protocols.
These are the difficulties and challenges in the efficiency of Wi Fi application scenarios due to the rapid development of the industry before the arrival of wi-fi6. This is also the industrial technical background for IEEE to launch Wi Fi 6 from the perspective of wireless standard formulation.
Nine technology upgrades of Wi Fi # 6
What does Wi Fi} 6 do? In summary, there are nine major technology upgrades for Wi Fi # 6.
(1) Higher order modulation technology 1024qam.
Wi Fi # 6 adopts higher-order 1024qam modulation technology, and the maximum data transmission rate is increased by 25% compared with Wi Fi # 5.
Wi Fi # 5 adopts 256qam modulation technology, and the single symbol data density is 8. Wi Fi # 6 adopts 1024qam vector modulation, and the single symbol data density reaches 10.
(2) 4-fold increase in subcarrier data
Wi Fi adopts multi carrier technology. The number of Wi Fi # 5 subcarriers is 256, the number of Wi Fi # 6 subcarriers is increased by 4 times, and the number of subcarriers reaches 1024. The increase of subcarriers has two advantages: one is to improve the spectrum utilization, and the other is to improve the transmission time utilization.
Subcarrier packets form Ru groups of different sizes and are allocated to each sta in Ru units. Using OFDMA technology, different information data can be packed in the same packet to avoid spectrum waste caused by short packets, reduce the competition between STAS and reduce the delay.
The Wi Fi # 5 standard already supports downlink multi-user concurrency; Wi Fi # 6 adds uplink multi-user concurrency. This includes many requirements: channel matrix measurement, clock management, power control. Both MU-MIMO technology and OFDMA technology solve the problem of multi device transmission. OFDMA technology is solved by frequency multiplexing, and MU-MIMO technology is solved by spatial multiplexing.
BSS coloring technology draws lessons from 802.11ah protocol. For example, data transmission is like eating in the hall. Each table is a BSS. When Wi Fi ＾ 5, you can't speak as long as one person speaks in the hall, but when Wi Fi ＾ 6, you can speak as long as the person at your table doesn't speak. Using this method for reference, 64 different BSS can coexist.
（6）TWT（ target wait time）
The most effective way to reduce power consumption is to put the inoperative device into sleep. Since Wi Fi # 6 serves Internet of things applications, it is set to allow STA to sleep safely, but it is not connected. The AP and sta negotiate the wake-up cycle, exchange information regularly, assist in increasing the AP broadcast cycle and improve the control ability of the AP. In other words, Wi Fi # 6 reduces the number of competing devices and power consumption by improving the ability to manage and control devices.
(7) Support 2.4GHz and 6GHz frequency bands
In order to solve the problem of poor spectrum resources, Wi Fi # 6 supports 2.4GHz and 6GHz bands. The 2.4GHz band is added because of its low transmission loss and reliable connection. 6G band is the exclusive band of Wi Fi # 6, which increases the spectrum resources by 3 times (including 59 / 29 / 14 / 7 channels). There is no historical version of other devices in the 6G band, so there is no need for compatibility, and the system efficiency is further improved.
Wi Fi # 6 customized 20MHz exclusive products for the special requirements of Internet of things applications for low power consumption, low cost and low rate. IOT # Wi Fi # 6 terminal only needs to support 20MHz bandwidth. The system is simple and suitable for lighting, entrainment, remote control, wearing, health care, medical and other application scenarios.
The encryption security level of Wi Fi # 6 is upgraded from WPA 2 to WPA 3, and the encrypted word is 192B, which can resist the "dictionary" attack. To protect the security before data cracking, the security level in the company, family and enterprise scenarios is higher than that in the cellular network.
Every time the cellular network is upgraded, someone will come out and say that Wi Fi is not needed. This statement is very popular in 4g-lte. Now that the cellular network has developed to 5g, will it replace Wi Fi? I don't think so. Let's take a look at the technical comparison between Wi Fi # 6 and 5g.
Compared with 5g, Wi Fi # 6 has better capacity and delay; The coverage cost per unit area is also lower than 5g; 5g network layering makes Wi Fi easier to access; Security upgrade makes it easier to manage and control data, and data security is more reliable; The forward compatible equipment enables the network upgrade to be carried out step by step; The global unified frequency band and protocol make Wi Fi # 6 easier to popularize than 5g; The new 6GHz frequency band enhances the competitiveness of 5g nanowave; Users' habit of using Wi Fi can continue to promote coexistence; Indoor static and outdoor dynamic complement each other and drive each other. Therefore, 5g and Wi Fi will continue to coexist.
Design challenges of Wi Fi 6 chip
Many technology upgrades of Wi Fi # 6 put forward high requirements and great challenges for chip design. It mainly includes several items: receiver, transmitter, baseband circuit and clock synchronization. In the baseband circuit field, the industry has begun to use 12NM and 14nm with higher processes. The clock transmission power control is not available in the past Wi Fi system, and the design of these clocks is very difficult.
Now many companies have designed Wi Fi # 6 chips, most of which are American companies. Quantenna was the first to make Wi Fi # 6 chips in 2016. Now the company has been acquired by ansenmey. It is worth noting that the Wi Fi # 6 standard was formulated in 2019 and will not be introduced to the industry until 2020. Why did their chip come out earlier than the standard? The most important reason is that these companies are involved in the formulation of standards, so standards are very important to our industrial development. We are stuck too much in the standard link.
The rise of Wi Fi industry
The development of Wi Fi industry is not easy. Today, the Wi Fi industry has reached US $3300 billion, with 37.5 billion Wi Fi chips. On average, each person has two devices using Wi Fi technology.
In the application market, the router and gateway market is now nearly 500 million units, and is still maintaining strong growth. Products with an annual shipment of more than 200 million include TVs, smart speakers, home appliances, lighting and surveillance cameras. Products with annual shipments of more than 100 million include watches and smart switches. Since 2017, the Wi Fi chip market has increased by 1 billion pieces per year.
Size forecast of Wi Fi Market
Looking at the Wi Fi # 6 market alone, the growth trend of the market is obvious. First of all, the rapid development of 5g has driven the rapid conversion of Wi Fi # devices to Wi Fi # 6. Secondly, the national policy of "double Gigabit speed-up" is good for the Wi Fi # 6 market. Third, the rapid increase in the density of Internet of things devices requires Wi Fi # 6 to improve the user experience. Finally, it is estimated that more than half of Wi Fi devices will adopt Wi Fi # 6 in 2025.
Wi Fi # 6 is a special opportunity for China's semiconductor industry. Looking back on history, every time node of technology upgrading is a good time to enter the industry. The emergence of new applications is also a good time for innovation. Aiot and industry 4.0 have brought new application markets. For China, we have a complete industrial chain. At the same time, national policies are vigorously promoting the safety of the industrial chain. There are many relevant advantages in terms of investment and policies, which is a good opportunity for the development of the semiconductor industry.
Broadcom integrated Wi Fi products
Finally, we introduce our company's Broadcom integration.
Broadcom integration, founded in 2005, focuses on the wireless transmission industry and is listed on the A-share main board in 2019. The product accumulation of Broadcom integration is mainly in two directions: first, the whole house intelligent solutions, mainly Bluetooth chips and Internet of things Wi Fi chips; Second, smart high-speed series chips are the main supplier of international etc sets, and a full range of vehicle specification chip products.
In terms of products, Broadcom integration currently has two main products: Wi Fi / BT / FM multi-mode dual core intelligent audio processor chip bk7271, which has rich audio and video processing resources, including microphone array, active noise reduction, artificial intelligence keyword wake-up and other characteristic technologies; Wi Fi # 6 # Internet of things MCU chip bk7236 supports Wi Fi # 6 protocol, is suitable for most Internet of things applications, and has been certified by Wi Fi # 6 alliance.
"Chip everyone says I say IC" industrial salon is a normalized and innovative concept exchange platform jointly built by Zhangjiang High Tech and simu research. In the future, the platform will focus on the hot issues of industrial development, carry out regular salons, and strive to build the most influential IC industry wisdom, innovation and exchange platform.
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