CES 2015

Quantenna Maintains 802.11ac Technology Lead as Broadcom and Marvell Launch New Chipsets
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Quantenna Maintains 802.11ac Technology Lead as Broadcom and Marvell Launch New Chipsets

Quantenna was the first to bring a 4×4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac chipset to the market (with the Asus RT-AC87U and the Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500). It has a number of Wave 2 features, but notably lacked support for 160 MHz channels. Qualcomm Atheros was the second vendor to support MU-MIMO, with the launch of the QCA 9980, 9982, 9990 and 9992 in April 2014. In the meanwhile, Broadcom appeared to miss the Wave 2 bandwagon. Instead, citing lack of MU-MIMO client devices as one particular reason, they opted to push the XStream platform with two discrete 5 GHz radios. This made for some interesting products such as the Netgear Nighthawk X6 R8000. CES 2015 was the ideal time for the silicon vendors to jostle for the pole position, and we weren’t disappointed. All the major vendors (and a few of their customers) had interesting announcements at CES 2015.

Quantenna

At CES 2015, we had the opportunity to meet up with Quantenna at their suite and look at the demonstration of their 8×8 160 MHz MU-MIMO 10G Wi-Fi platform announced last year. Unfortunately, photography wasn’t permitted, but the demo was very similar to the first generation 802.11ac demonstration by Buffalo Technologies. One of the most important advantages of the new 10G platform is the integration of the 2.4 GHz radios (for 802.11n support) in the same package. This ensures that vendors don’t need to hunt elsewhere for the 2.4 GHz support. For example, Asus went with a Broadcom SoC / 2.4 GHz radios while Netgear went with a Qualcomm SoC / 2.4 GHz radios for their QSR1000 solutions. On the WLAN PHY rates side, we have upwards of 6.9 Gbps for the 5 GHz band (since this is a true 8×8 solution). The PHY rates of the 2.4 GHz band along with the proprietary extensions (additional QAM-rates support for both bands that is outside the official specifications) take the peak WLAN PHY rates upwards of 9 Gbps. Quantenna is marketing the system as a 10G solution. It is on track for shipping later this year, but Quantenna wouldn’t commit on a more specific time-frame.

The other interesting announcements included a reference design with Lantiq for mid-range 4×4 routers. Using the QSR1000 platform along with a Lantiq GRX300 processor, this enables vendors to have a quick turnaround for their router platforms. The QSR1000 provides 4×4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac (5 GHz) support, while a Lantiq GRX300 SoC provides the 802.11n / 2.4 GHz support. Also on display was the MAUI platform aimed at providing enterprise vendors and service providers a way to optimize the Wi-Fi performance and troubleshoot issues at the customers’ end using cloud-based analytics.

Broadcom

Broadcom launched a number of products in their 802.11ac lineup in order to update their portfolio with Wave 2 features. The BCM4366 is the 4×4 MU-MIMO capable radio for high-end systems. For gateways and routers, this can work in tandem with a BCM47094 network processor SoC (which has two Cortex-A9 cores running at 1.4 GHz). It has support for 160 MHz channels (contiguous 80 MHz + 80 MHz, as well as two discontiguous 80 MHz channels). The BCM4366 also includes a NitroQAM feature (QAM-1024). This is outside the 802.11ac specifications (Broadcom-proprietary), and is expected to provide significant performance benefits for clients with Broadcom chipsets. The network processor SoC also integrates USB 3.0 support.

Broadcoms PR doesn’t talk about peak WLAN PHY rates, but it looks from D-Link’s DIR-895L product page that we don’t get the expected 3.4 Gbps+ from a 4×4 MU-MIMO solution capable of connecting to other 4×4 MU-MIMO clients. The cap seems to be at 2.165 Gbps.

Other updates to the lineup include the BCM53573 and the BCM47189 which are 2×2 802.11ac SoCs integrating the CPU, Ethernet switch as well as the radios in a single chip.

Marvell

Marvell also announced a Wave 2 802.11ac solution in the Avastar 88W8964. The target market is access points, service provider gateways and STBs. Similar to the other solutions described above, we have 160 MHz channel support. The main advantage is the integration of a dual core Cortex-A9 with offloading for many WLAN functions. This frees up the host CPU for other functions.

Even though a true 4×4 160 MHz solution can support upwards of 3.6 Gbps, the Avastar 88W8964 has MU-MIMO support for three 1×1 or a mix of 2×2 and 1×1 client devices. The cap on the WLAN PHY rate is at 2.6 Gbps.

Summary

Despite Qualcomm Atheros announcing their MU-MIMO chipsets early last year, solutions such as the TP-LINK AC2600 got announced only at CES 2015. Shipment is also slated for Spring 2015. The solution doesn’t have 160 MHz support either. On the other hand, Broadcom has just announced their 160 MHz Wave 2 solution, but customers such as D-Link are expecting to bring routers based on it to the market in the same time-frame as the QCA 9980 solutions. In any case, all the solutions other than Quantenna’s seem to missing one key feature or the other. As a end-user, if one wants to upgrade their Wi-Fi router / access point by the end of the year, a Quantenna 10G-based solution is probably the best bet. That said, solutions such as the D-Link DIR-895L that adopt the XStream platform (two sets of 5 GHz radios) along with the latest MU-MIMO solution from Broadcom are also very attractive for use-cases where channel interference is not much of a concern (rules out dense apartment complexes) and the presence of non-MU-MIMO clients prevent the MU-MIMO solutions from providing full benefit.

 

Quantenna Maintains 802.11ac Technology Lead as Broadcom and Marvell Launch New Chipsets
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Quantenna Maintains 802.11ac Technology Lead as Broadcom and Marvell Launch New Chipsets

Quantenna was the first to bring a 4×4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac chipset to the market (with the Asus RT-AC87U and the Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500). It has a number of Wave 2 features, but notably lacked support for 160 MHz channels. Qualcomm Atheros was the second vendor to support MU-MIMO, with the launch of the QCA 9980, 9982, 9990 and 9992 in April 2014. In the meanwhile, Broadcom appeared to miss the Wave 2 bandwagon. Instead, citing lack of MU-MIMO client devices as one particular reason, they opted to push the XStream platform with two discrete 5 GHz radios. This made for some interesting products such as the Netgear Nighthawk X6 R8000. CES 2015 was the ideal time for the silicon vendors to jostle for the pole position, and we weren’t disappointed. All the major vendors (and a few of their customers) had interesting announcements at CES 2015.

Quantenna

At CES 2015, we had the opportunity to meet up with Quantenna at their suite and look at the demonstration of their 8×8 160 MHz MU-MIMO 10G Wi-Fi platform announced last year. Unfortunately, photography wasn’t permitted, but the demo was very similar to the first generation 802.11ac demonstration by Buffalo Technologies. One of the most important advantages of the new 10G platform is the integration of the 2.4 GHz radios (for 802.11n support) in the same package. This ensures that vendors don’t need to hunt elsewhere for the 2.4 GHz support. For example, Asus went with a Broadcom SoC / 2.4 GHz radios while Netgear went with a Qualcomm SoC / 2.4 GHz radios for their QSR1000 solutions. On the WLAN PHY rates side, we have upwards of 6.9 Gbps for the 5 GHz band (since this is a true 8×8 solution). The PHY rates of the 2.4 GHz band along with the proprietary extensions (additional QAM-rates support for both bands that is outside the official specifications) take the peak WLAN PHY rates upwards of 9 Gbps. Quantenna is marketing the system as a 10G solution. It is on track for shipping later this year, but Quantenna wouldn’t commit on a more specific time-frame.

The other interesting announcements included a reference design with Lantiq for mid-range 4×4 routers. Using the QSR1000 platform along with a Lantiq GRX300 processor, this enables vendors to have a quick turnaround for their router platforms. The QSR1000 provides 4×4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac (5 GHz) support, while a Lantiq GRX300 SoC provides the 802.11n / 2.4 GHz support. Also on display was the MAUI platform aimed at providing enterprise vendors and service providers a way to optimize the Wi-Fi performance and troubleshoot issues at the customers’ end using cloud-based analytics.

Broadcom

Broadcom launched a number of products in their 802.11ac lineup in order to update their portfolio with Wave 2 features. The BCM4366 is the 4×4 MU-MIMO capable radio for high-end systems. For gateways and routers, this can work in tandem with a BCM47094 network processor SoC (which has two Cortex-A9 cores running at 1.4 GHz). It has support for 160 MHz channels (contiguous 80 MHz + 80 MHz, as well as two discontiguous 80 MHz channels). The BCM4366 also includes a NitroQAM feature (QAM-1024). This is outside the 802.11ac specifications (Broadcom-proprietary), and is expected to provide significant performance benefits for clients with Broadcom chipsets. The network processor SoC also integrates USB 3.0 support.

Broadcoms PR doesn’t talk about peak WLAN PHY rates, but it looks from D-Link’s DIR-895L product page that we don’t get the expected 3.4 Gbps+ from a 4×4 MU-MIMO solution capable of connecting to other 4×4 MU-MIMO clients. The cap seems to be at 2.165 Gbps.

Other updates to the lineup include the BCM53573 and the BCM47189 which are 2×2 802.11ac SoCs integrating the CPU, Ethernet switch as well as the radios in a single chip.

Marvell

Marvell also announced a Wave 2 802.11ac solution in the Avastar 88W8964. The target market is access points, service provider gateways and STBs. Similar to the other solutions described above, we have 160 MHz channel support. The main advantage is the integration of a dual core Cortex-A9 with offloading for many WLAN functions. This frees up the host CPU for other functions.

Even though a true 4×4 160 MHz solution can support upwards of 3.6 Gbps, the Avastar 88W8964 has MU-MIMO support for three 1×1 or a mix of 2×2 and 1×1 client devices. The cap on the WLAN PHY rate is at 2.6 Gbps.

Summary

Despite Qualcomm Atheros announcing their MU-MIMO chipsets early last year, solutions such as the TP-LINK AC2600 got announced only at CES 2015. Shipment is also slated for Spring 2015. The solution doesn’t have 160 MHz support either. On the other hand, Broadcom has just announced their 160 MHz Wave 2 solution, but customers such as D-Link are expecting to bring routers based on it to the market in the same time-frame as the QCA 9980 solutions. In any case, all the solutions other than Quantenna’s seem to missing one key feature or the other. As a end-user, if one wants to upgrade their Wi-Fi router / access point by the end of the year, a Quantenna 10G-based solution is probably the best bet. That said, solutions such as the D-Link DIR-895L that adopt the XStream platform (two sets of 5 GHz radios) along with the latest MU-MIMO solution from Broadcom are also very attractive for use-cases where channel interference is not much of a concern (rules out dense apartment complexes) and the presence of non-MU-MIMO clients prevent the MU-MIMO solutions from providing full benefit.

 

AMD Enters NAS Market with QNAP's 10G-Ready TVS-x63
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AMD Enters NAS Market with QNAP’s 10G-Ready TVS-x63

QNAP’s CES suite was quite busy when we visited them last week. Considering the number of product and feature announcements that were made, it wasn’t a surprise at all. There were three new major product announcements, and we will cover them in the course of two articles.

The NAS market has been dominated by Intel’s x86 platform at the mid- to high-end, and ARM-based SoCs at the lower end of the market. Things are shaking up this year, with the launch of a 2x 10GbE equipped ARM-based model from Synology, the DS2015xs. On the x86 front, I had often wondered why AMD never had a product in the market. Considering the fact that the HP ProLiant microservers based on the AMD Turion platform were quite popular in the DIY market, it was surprising to find the COTS NAS vendors ignoring it completely. With the launch of the TVS-x63 lineup, QNAP has become the first vendor to bring an AMD-based x86 NAS to the market.

The TVS-x63 lineup has 4-, 6- and 8-bay models. Each of them come with either 4 or 8 GB of RAM. Higher amounts of RAM are necessary for applications where the Virtualization Station package will find use. In addition, the 8-bay model also comes with a ‘+’ SKU. This version has a 10GBASE-T NIC pre-installed in the spare PCIe slot. The ‘+’ version comes with either 8 or 16 GB of RAM. We will summarize the specifications of the various models in the TVS-x63 towards the end of the article. Prior to that, we will take a look at the AMD embedded G-series SoC that powers these NAS units.

QNAP specifies the CPU in the TVS-x63 models as ‘AMD quad-core 2.4 GHz with Radeon Graphics’ in their marketing material. At the suite, we pulled up the System Information tab, which revealed the AMD SoC to be GX-424CC.

The GX-424CC is a 4C/4T Steppe Eagle configuration (based on the Puma / Jaguar+ microarchitecture). It has a TDP of 25 W. The L2 cache is 2 MB in size and the cores run at 2.4 GHz. The integrated Radeon GPU runs at 497 MHz. The unit can support DDR3 memory at 1866 MHz. Puma is the successor to Jaguar. It supports out-of-order execution. Performance-wise, it is expected to be similar to that of the Silvermont cores in the Bay Trail SoCs.

The block diagram of a typical AMD G-Series embedded SoC based on the Puma cores is produced below. It is a first-generation APU SoC design. The I/O ports mentioned at the bottom of the block diagram are important in determining how the QNAP TVS-x63 NAS units balance the I/O amongst the various necessary ports.

Considering the 8-bay TVS-863 for further analysis, we find the various I/Os distributed as shown below. It must be noted that the first two bays are directly connected to the SATA ports of the SoC. QNAP strongly suggests that those two ports be used for SSD caching. Typically, SoCs targeting the NAS market have native Ethernet ports, but the AMD SoC needs a PCIe bridge chip. We will have to see what effect this has in the performance department.

On the multimedia side of things, the TVS-x63 has two HDMI outputs. It supports true 4K output for the UI as well as QvPC side of things. However, video playback will be restricted to 1080p. The VCE engine is supported by the firmware, enabling hardware-accelerated transcoding similar to what we saw with the TS-x51 and TS-x53 Pro units that used Quick Sync.

The extract below summarizes the specifications of the various models in the TVS-x63 lineup.

QNAP has sprung a surprise by going the AMD-route for a high performance NAS. We can probably expect the Intel-based NAS units to go down in price over the next few months. I am assuming it also provides some leverage for NAS vendors to negotiate with Intel on the pricing. On the whole, this development is a good one for consumers. In terms of pricing, the TVS-863+-8G is expected to retail for $1400. This is cheap considering the 10G port is pre-installed. The vanilla models come in at $1200 for the TVS-863-4G, $1000 for the TVS-663-4G and $800 for the TVS-463-4G.

AMD Enters NAS Market with QNAP's 10G-Ready TVS-x63
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AMD Enters NAS Market with QNAP’s 10G-Ready TVS-x63

QNAP’s CES suite was quite busy when we visited them last week. Considering the number of product and feature announcements that were made, it wasn’t a surprise at all. There were three new major product announcements, and we will cover them in the course of two articles.

The NAS market has been dominated by Intel’s x86 platform at the mid- to high-end, and ARM-based SoCs at the lower end of the market. Things are shaking up this year, with the launch of a 2x 10GbE equipped ARM-based model from Synology, the DS2015xs. On the x86 front, I had often wondered why AMD never had a product in the market. Considering the fact that the HP ProLiant microservers based on the AMD Turion platform were quite popular in the DIY market, it was surprising to find the COTS NAS vendors ignoring it completely. With the launch of the TVS-x63 lineup, QNAP has become the first vendor to bring an AMD-based x86 NAS to the market.

The TVS-x63 lineup has 4-, 6- and 8-bay models. Each of them come with either 4 or 8 GB of RAM. Higher amounts of RAM are necessary for applications where the Virtualization Station package will find use. In addition, the 8-bay model also comes with a ‘+’ SKU. This version has a 10GBASE-T NIC pre-installed in the spare PCIe slot. The ‘+’ version comes with either 8 or 16 GB of RAM. We will summarize the specifications of the various models in the TVS-x63 towards the end of the article. Prior to that, we will take a look at the AMD embedded G-series SoC that powers these NAS units.

QNAP specifies the CPU in the TVS-x63 models as ‘AMD quad-core 2.4 GHz with Radeon Graphics’ in their marketing material. At the suite, we pulled up the System Information tab, which revealed the AMD SoC to be GX-424CC.

The GX-424CC is a 4C/4T Steppe Eagle configuration (based on the Puma / Jaguar+ microarchitecture). It has a TDP of 25 W. The L2 cache is 2 MB in size and the cores run at 2.4 GHz. The integrated Radeon GPU runs at 497 MHz. The unit can support DDR3 memory at 1866 MHz. Puma is the successor to Jaguar. It supports out-of-order execution. Performance-wise, it is expected to be similar to that of the Silvermont cores in the Bay Trail SoCs.

The block diagram of a typical AMD G-Series embedded SoC based on the Puma cores is produced below. It is a first-generation APU SoC design. The I/O ports mentioned at the bottom of the block diagram are important in determining how the QNAP TVS-x63 NAS units balance the I/O amongst the various necessary ports.

Considering the 8-bay TVS-863 for further analysis, we find the various I/Os distributed as shown below. It must be noted that the first two bays are directly connected to the SATA ports of the SoC. QNAP strongly suggests that those two ports be used for SSD caching. Typically, SoCs targeting the NAS market have native Ethernet ports, but the AMD SoC needs a PCIe bridge chip. We will have to see what effect this has in the performance department.

On the multimedia side of things, the TVS-x63 has two HDMI outputs. It supports true 4K output for the UI as well as QvPC side of things. However, video playback will be restricted to 1080p. The VCE engine is supported by the firmware, enabling hardware-accelerated transcoding similar to what we saw with the TS-x51 and TS-x53 Pro units that used Quick Sync.

The extract below summarizes the specifications of the various models in the TVS-x63 lineup.

QNAP has sprung a surprise by going the AMD-route for a high performance NAS. We can probably expect the Intel-based NAS units to go down in price over the next few months. I am assuming it also provides some leverage for NAS vendors to negotiate with Intel on the pricing. On the whole, this development is a good one for consumers. In terms of pricing, the TVS-863+-8G is expected to retail for $1400. This is cheap considering the 10G port is pre-installed. The vanilla models come in at $1200 for the TVS-863-4G, $1000 for the TVS-663-4G and $800 for the TVS-463-4G.

Seagate and LaCie at CES 2015
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Seagate and LaCie at CES 2015

Seagate acquired LaCie a couple of years back. We saw some complementary product lineups last year, but this time around, the integration seems to be well and truly complete. Amongst the new products introduced at CES 2015, the most interesting seemed to be the 7mm thin external USB 3.0 hard drive.

The Seagate Seven is based on a 500 GB 5mm 2.5″ Angsana drive (two platters). The SATA-USB 3.0 bridge has been integrated on the main board. A premium steel enclosure creates a unique and striking product at a reasonable $100 price point.

The Seagate Wireless product is an low-cost entry update to the wireless mobile storage lineup for smartphones and tablets. The USB 3.0-based Seagate Wireless Plus and the LaCie Fuel will continue to exist. The new product is USB 2.0-based and has only one available capacity point – 500 GB. It is priced at $129. Unlike the My Passport Wireless that we reviewed late last year, this one doesn’t have a SD card slot – the content consumption side is the target market here. Seagate had a handy comparison table in their briefing.

The Seagate Personal Cloud is a NAS lineup targeted towards the average home consumer. It comes in 1 and 2-bay varieties. The mobile apps are the focus here – primary target market being owners with media libraries that need to be streamed to a variety of devices. Seagate operates relay servers with end-to-end encryption so that access to the content on the device is available from anywhere in the world. The various models and price points, as well as the competitive positioning are reproduced below.

On the LaCie side of things, we had the usual fashion statement in the LaCie Mirror – an external 1TB 2.5″ USB 3.0 drive that can double up as a mirror. It carries a premium, as usual, with the pricing set at $280. The more exciting product from a technical viewpoint was the LaCie Rugged RAID. The industrial design is almost the same as the LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt that we had reviewed last year. The thickness is more to accommodate two 2.5″ drives, and there is a switch to move between RAID 0 and RAID 1 for the internal volume. The device comes with two hard drives. A dual SSD option was ruled out since Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 don’t support more than 10 W over the bus.

The pricing of the 4TB version (2x 2TB drives inside) will be $450. Advertised performance numbers include speeds of over 240 MBps in RAID 0. Similar to the Rugged Thunderbolt, the unit is shock, dust and splash-proof, and carries an IP54 rating.

On the enterprise side of things, we finally got a look at the Seagate Kinetic Ethernet-Attached Hard Drive. As a quick introduction, the unit does away with the need for a separate NAS server by presenting two Ethernet links over what looks like a SATA connector. Object-based storage removes lots of overhead. Seagate indicated a growing number of chassis vendors with support for these drives. We hope to do a more detailed investigation into Kinetic in the near future.

Seagate also had a demonstration of a ClusterStor unit from their Xyratex acquisition. Kristian will be covering updates from the SandForce division later this week.