Advertisement

Marvell announces "industry's first" 450 Mbps 802.11n chip

Chipmaker Marvell looks to have gone into full-on bragging mode today, with it announcing what it claims to be the "industry's first" 802.11n chip that operates at 450 Megabits-per-second. Dubbed the Marvell TopDog 11n-450, the chip is a 90-nanometer, 3x3 WLAN solution with three spatial streams, which the company helpfully informs us is more than eight times faster than plain old 802.11g 54 Mbps offerings, and 1.5 times faster than current 802.11n 300 Mbps options -- in theory, at least. What's more, the TopDog chip also promises a 500% range increase over 802.11g, and a still decent 160% increased range over other 802.11n solutions. While those numbers have obviously yet to be put to the test (by someone other than Marvell, that is), that detail should be able to be taken care of soon enough, as the chips are set to begin shipping in volume sometime next quarter -- and, of course, they'll be on display at CES as well.