SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 27, 2021 — Palma Ceia SemiDesign, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in wireless connectivity solutions, today announced the PCS1100, a Wi-Fi 6E 4×4 transceiver. The PCS1100 is the first chip announced as part of Palma Ceia’s family of Wi-Fi 6 products which support the growing deployment of Wi-Fi 6 networks, and it will provide essential platform technology for a series of upcoming Wi-Fi 6E chipsets.
The PCS1100 supports up to four spatial streams and can operate in the newly allocated 6 GHz spectrum (5.925–7.125 GHz) for Wi-Fi devices, in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The transceiver supports dual-concurrent operation, allowing simultaneous operation on two frequency bands.
The PC1100 operates as the RF radio part of a wireless system enabling the operation of a Wi-Fi 6 AP-Access Point or STA-Station. It can interface with a host system-level ASSP or ASIC supporting Wi-Fi 6 MAC and baseband digital operation. It is also the ideal companion chip to premium-tier access point architectures.
Designers who integrate the AP or STA Wi-Fi 6 digital modem functionality on their system-level ASIC or ASSP chip can use the PCS1100 as the RF companion chip supporting the radio operation of Wi-Fi 6. This reduces the risk of RF integration and allows use of advanced process nodes with the highest logic gate density.
“As system-level chips grow in functionality to support advanced AI applications that require Wi-Fi connectivity, they must use advanced process nodes to minimize the chip area, and so using an external RF chip reduces the risk of low yield resulting from failure of an integrated RF radio,” said Chief Technology Officer Robert Young of Palma Ceia. “The PCS1100 benefits from the experience and expertise of our RF team, and I expect to see those skills reflected in our subsequent products.”
Designers who integrate STA modem functionality can use 1×1, 2×2, 3×3 or 4×4 operational configurations, with each additional incremental configuration providing more data throughput. In each configuration, the radio can operate at 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz or 6 GHz, or simultaneously on two frequency bands subject to a maximum of four spatial streams. Customers who integrate the AP Wi-Fi 6 modem functionality on their system-level ASSP or ASIC can use multiple PCS1100 chips to support as many as 12 spatial streams, eight in 5 GHz or 6 GHz, and four in 2.4 GHz (using three PCS1100s) in both the uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) directions.
The PCS1100 Wi-Fi 6E 4×4:4 transceiver features a robust RF architecture offering key features and performance indicators including:
- Support for 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz (5.925–7.125 GHz) frequency bands
- Up to four spatial streams
- Support for dual-concurrent operation, allowing simultaneous operation on two frequency bands
- Excellent receiver sensitivity for reliable connections at longer range
- Support for 1024-QAM modulation that delivers increased throughput
- Excellent phase noise and linearity performance to ensure Tx and Rx EVM (Error Vector Magnitude) requirements are met with significant margin
- Integrated data converters for channel bandwidths up to 80 MHz, with a high-speed SerDes digital interface to the system-level chip; support for 160MHz channels through an analog I/Q interface
- Integrated digital functionality for calibration, production test and signal path compensation, including an embedded RISC-V processor core
“We are extremely excited about the launch of the PCS1100, the first chip in our family of Wi-Fi-6-based products,” said Greg Walker, chief administrative officer at Palma Ceia. “The workplace in 2021 can be anywhere we are, and users are increasingly dependent on wireless connectivity. We anticipate a growing demand for the PCS1100 as an RF companion chip as Wi-Fi 6E and use of the 6G spectrum continue to expand.”
Availability
The PCS1100 is scheduled to tape out in early Q2 of 2021, with customer samples available in Q3. Contact Palma Ceia SemiDesign via email at info@pcsemi.com for details.