General

WiFi 7 standard, also known as IEEE 802.11be Extremely High Throughput (EHT). Works across all three frequency bands 2.4 GHz (2.400 to 2.495 GHz), 5 GHz (5.170 to 5.835 GHz) and 6 GHz (5.925 to 7.125 GHz) and aims to support a transmission rate of up to 30 Gbps, which is more than three times the maximum rate for Wi-Fi 6/6E (9.6 Gbps).

The benefit for a typical Wi-Fi 7 laptop is a potential maximum data rate of almost 5.8 Gbps. This is 2.4x faster than the 2.4 Gbps possible with Wi-Fi 6/6E and could easily enable high quality 8K video streaming or reduce a massive 15 GB file download to roughly 25 seconds vs. the one minute it would take with the best legacy Wi-Fi technology.

Key Technology Features of Wi-Fi 7 / 802.11be

• 320 MHz bandwidth and more efficient utilization of non-contiguous spectrum

• 4096-QAM (4K-QAM)

• Multi-band/multi-channel aggregation and operation

• 16 spatial streams and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) protocols enhancements

• Multi-Access Point (AP) Coordination

• Enhanced link adaptation and retransmission protocol (e.g., Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ))

• Enhanced resource allocation in OFDMA

• Integrating Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) extensions for low-latency real-time traffic (IEEE 802.11aa)

The biggest change in WiFi 7 is in the theoretical maximum data rate and bandwidth, continuing with the general trend of expanding WiFi capabilities into higher performance in earlier iterations. In WiFi 7, this is accomplished with higher QAM, higher frequency (into the 6 GHz band), and greater bandwidth allocation.

4096 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation)

Wi-Fi 7 will use higher modulation orders, supporting 4096-QAM — up from 1024-QAM in 802.11ax.

Increasing the QAM modulation level increases link capacity and data rates. However, a high QAM modulation level will lead to reduced receiver sensitivity and increased linearity requirements at the transmitter. It results in a peak PHY data rate increased by 20% over 1024 QAM.

Single Channel Bandwidth 320 MHz

The single channel bandwidth is increased from 160 MHz (Wi-Fi 6/6E) to 320 MHz with 3 channels in the 6 GHz band (5.925 to 7.125 GHz). Doubling the channel width to 320 MHz allows to double the PHY data rate compared to using 160 MHz channels. This means that WiFi 7 has doubled the transmission capacity of last-gen WiFi 6 and 6E technologies. The 6 GHz band supports up to 6 overlapping 320 MHz channels and 3 non-overlapping channels.

The wider channel reduces delays and further improves the transmission rate. The maximum theoretical rate can even reach an outstanding 46 Gbps. 320 MHz channels are set on the more open 6 GHz band. This avoids the most common wireless transmission protocol bands, resulting in less interference to the signal.

Northbound API

OVSDB

Add 320 MHz channel bandwidth in opensync.ovsschema

• Wifi_Radio_Config

  • hw_mode: add new value in enum: 11be

  • ht_mode: add new value in enum: HT320

  • center_freq0_chan: new column with center channel

• Wifi_Radio_State

  • ht_mode: add new value in enum: HT320

  • center_freq0_chan: new column with center channel

• Wifi_VIF_Neighbors

  • ht_mode: add new value in enum: HT320

MQTT

Add 320 MHz channel bandwidth in opensync_stats protubuf

• enum ChanWidth

….

CHAN_WIDTH_320MHZ = 8;

• message Neighbor {

…

optional uint32 c_freq0_chan = 8;

Southbound API

Wireless Manager (WM) is controlling the WiFi 7 products and we have extended the hostap in core and other low level code under platform-qca and platform-bcm.

Requirements

Hardware must have WiFi 7 (802.11be) module/support.
Qualcomm devices must use is QSDK 12.x and Broadcom devices must use SDK 5.04L.04p2.