I Need WiFi Nerd Wisdom....

[Fatawan]

Hello--I am a member here and have asked a few questions on the forum over the years for issues related to home wifi. However, this time it pertains to my day job(money manager) and I know probably a select few of you will have some valuable input, but I will take whatever I can get! I am researching a company called Akoustis which makes BAW filters that use a monocrystalline substrate that makes them superior the higher up the spectrum you go from 3-6GHz. The theory is that they will excel as 5G comes online, as routers get more complicated, and as things like LTE-U start to interfere with everything. As it pertains to this forum, I wonder if I could get your comments on the following excerpt from a recent Zacks analyst report:

A new market is developing that Akoustis is eager to pursue. It is high band (5GHz and above) tri-band routers. The company has now talked to all the Wi-Fi vendors of either chips or routers including Tier one OEMS for enterprise and retail markets. Akoustis believes it’s single crystal BAW technology has potential to deliver the highest quality, small form factor solution, for the 5GHz and above bands. These new routers, which are just beginning to come to market, use 2.5GHz, 5.2 GHz, and now 5.7GHz bands and are sold to both residential and commercial customers. In addition to the performance challenge for current vendors to hit the 5.7GHz band with their technology, competitive chips are 8 x 5 mms in size. The Akoustis’ proposed solution is estimated to be 5-6 times smaller. This new tri-band router market has potential to utilize tens-of-millions of units per year. It is possible that the company could sign customers in this market and then be shipping product in twelve to fifteen months, just shortly behind current customers. The possibility for sales in this market has caused the company to explore higher production capacity than it had previously planned.

I have looked at the teardowns of some of the routers in the reviews and the same names pop up as in the cellular chipset/filter market(Qualcomm, Broadcom/Avago, Qorvo/RFMD, Skyworks). None of these companies(other than maybe Avago) can supply the BAW filters necessary for a congested space in the 5+ GHz area. I am just curious if what is said about the router market by this analyst is correct.

As always, thank you for your input.

 

[thiggins]

"Tri-band" routers have been around since 2014 and exist in AC3200 (3x3) and AC5400 (4x4) forms.

These routers are expensive top-of-line designs. I don't have access to sales figures, but I don't think they represent the highest volume category.

These routers have two 5 GHz radios, one for low band and the other for high-band channels. Due to the close proximity of the two radios, bandpass filters are used on each radio. They are the white rectangular things in the photo below (Linksys EA9500).

I don't know the filter manufacturer, but there are probably plenty of companies that can supply the Wi-Fi router market, since ultra-small size isn't a requirement.

The hot trend in Wi-Fi today is mesh / distributed Wi-Fi systems (eero, Luma, etc.) These products usually have dual-band radios. Only Linksys Velop and NETGEAR Orbi have tri-radio designs.

 

[Fatawan]

Although the analyst touted the small size of the filters, I didn't really think that was a big deal in the router world. Plenty of space there. I think what these Akoustis filters bring to the table in the 5GHz area is a much better performance, especially as the spectrum gets more crowded and there is a need for more precise filtering of specific bands. I will have to track down who makes these filters now and assess their specs. Thanks Tim.

 

[thiggins]

Although the analyst touted the small size of the filters, I didn't really think that was a big deal in the router world. Plenty of space there. I think what these Akoustis filters bring to the table in the 5GHz area is a much better performance, especially as the spectrum gets more crowded and there is a need for more precise filtering of specific bands. I will have to track down who makes these filters now and assess their specs. Thanks Tim.

The way I read the limited Akoustis info was that they were pushing the size advantage.

I don't know that performance of the currently used filters is a problem. The main thing that would drive a need for sharper filters would be if designers wanted to add a third 5 GHz radio for DFS channels only. That would be a very tough filtering job....

 

[MichaelCG]

Space/Size will become more critical as the market starts to mature. Today it is the high end consumer gear which does tend to be larger in size. As this gets more common and it starts to make more inroads into the enterprise and commercial markets, the ability to shrink this all into the package the size of a smoke detector becomes more critical. Also think about the consumer mesh designs on how small the packaging is and the number of radios that are being crammed in there. Another use case to consider is in mobile devices....someday...not today...but maybe in another year or two as people start expecting 500Mbps+ abilities on their phones because more is obviously better.

 

[thiggins]

.but maybe in another year or two as people start expecting 500Mbps+ abilities on their phones because more is obviously better.

I see no evidence of consumer choosing phones based on Wi-Fi capability. Vendors and carriers don't even provide detailed specs so that consumers can make an informed decision.

 

[sfx2000]

Most of the handset vendors these days use SIP (System in Package) or SOM (System on Module) for space concerns...

Murata and Samsung are big players in this space - the SIP/SOM's will have the WiFi MAC/Baseband along with the LNA/PA/SAW filters already integrated into a single module.

On the high end - we're seeing a lot of 2T/2R modules already in play - DFS isn't dependent on the second radio, and vendors like Apple already support DFS on their dual-band (even single radio) devices - if I recall, Samsung is similar here with their higher end galaxy phones..

 

[Fatawan]

Update--T-Mobile is touting the Galaxy S8/S8+ as being the first phones to use LTE-U. Things could start to get congested in 5GHz land. I learned some more about filters in triband routers also. What we likely see in the above pic are Dielectric Monoblock Resonators(DMR). Are they approximately 4 x 8mm? Effective, but large and inefficient. The Samsung phone probably uses LTCC(low temperature co-fired ceramics) which are small but not very specific frequency-wise. So, there is great need for BAW filters in this 5GHz range.