Broadcom introduced its first family of 802.11ac chips, promising devices that are three times faster and up to six times more power efficient than equivalent 802.11n solutions. The company is positioning its 802.11ac "5G WiFi" silicon as "a major evolutionary step from the existing 802.11a/b/g/n networks" as its will boost the wireless rate and the range in the home, allowing consumers to watch HD-quality video from more devices, in more places, simultaneously. 
Broadcom's family of 5G WiFi solutions includes the BCM4360, BCM4352, BCM43526 and BCM43516. Some highlights:
- 80 MHz channel bandwidth that is 2 times wider than current 802.11n solutions
- 256-QAM, a higher modulation scheme that increases data transfer efficiency
- Transmit and receive beamforming
- Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) Codes
- Space-Time Block Codes (STBC)
- BCM4360 supports the PCIe interface and implements 3-stream 802.11ac specifications, and reaches speeds up to 1.3 Gbps.
BCM4352 and BCM43526 implement 2-stream 802.11ac specification to reach up to 867 Mbps. BCM4352 supports PCIe interface; BCM43526 supports the USB interface. - BCM43516 supports USB and reaches speeds of up to 433 Mbps with its single stream 802.11ac implementation.
- Chips with the PCIe interface are ideal for access points, routers, DSL/cable gateways and PC products; chips that use USB are ideal for consumer electronics devices including televisions, set-top boxes and Blu-Ray players.
http://www.5gwifi.org/
