Qualcomm releases a 500Mbits/s Powerline networking chip

CHIP DESIGNER Qualcomm has released a Powerline chip claiming to deliver 500Mbits/s bandwidth.

Qualcomm's Atheros division has released the AR7420 chip used in Powerline networking products, offering Ethernet connectivity over cabling used to carry electricity. The AR7420 chip can provide up to 500Mbits/s, which is certainly enough to stream raw 1080p Blu-ray films without having to lay down new copper cabling around the house.

For those not wanting to use any cabling at all, Qualcomm also introduced the Atheros AR9580 three-stream 802.11n wireless chip that it claims can virtually eliminate packet loss, something that we find hard to believe. However bombastic the claim, the chip itself is trying to optimise performance for video over wireless connectivity, a non-trivial research challenge.

Leon Lin VP of Edimax, one of the firms that has implemented Qualcomm's AR9580 chip said, "We believe the new VoW bridge will help to make wireless HD [high definition] video a reality for a broader group of users, as our carrier customers can now more quickly deliver services with exponentially better streaming performance."

The extra bandwidth afforded by Qualcomm's latest wired and wireless chips are only useful when devices can make use of it. Anything that has a gigabit Ethernet interface can make use of the AR7420 Powerline chip, but to receive three-channel 802.11n, device manufacturers need to incorporate supporting hardware.

Given that 500Mbits/s Powerline networking would be good enough for streaming just about anything out today, it seems curious that Qualcomm is essentially pitching two chips with similar use cases. One wonders what chip vendors will use to flog chips once streaming high definition video and multi-channel sound is no longer a challenge. µ