Wi-Fi ON

STEROIDS
High Speed Wi-Fi standards 802.11ac
and 802.11ad

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
Wireless networking is a fundamental technology as important as
computing itself. Wi-Fi has pushed the performance and user
experience of wireless to guarantee that it is keeping pace with
the ever increasing demand of higher speeds and new usage
models. With the advent of bandwidth hungry applications, such
as large file transfers (e.g., blue-ray HD movie, raw uncompressed
images, etc.), HD (High Definition) video streaming, wireless
display, and cellular data offload, more bandwidth is sorely
needed. Wi-Fi is proliferating in the CE (Consumer Electronics)
domain providing a playground for faster media transfer
communication applications. Market statistics project number of
Wi-Fi enabled devices shipped in year 2012to surpasses 1.5
billion. Extensive effort and work are in progress in IEEE on two
emerging standards likely to shake up the wireless world: IEEE
802.11ac and IEEE 802.11ad. These standards target data rates
faster than the gigabit Ethernet. The history of initiation and
development of these standards up to the year 2011 is presented
in.

CHAPTER 2

Wi-Fi 802.11

Wi-Fi (or, incorrectly but commonly, WiFi) is a local area wireless

technology that allows an electronic device to participate in
computer networking using 2.4 GHz UHF and 5 GHz SHF ISM radio
bands. The Wi-Fi Alliance defines Wi-Fi as any "wireless local area
network" (WLAN) product based on the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) 802.11 standards". Wi-Fi Alliance is
a non-profit organization that promotes Wi-Fi technology and
certifies Wi-Fi products if they conform to certain standards of
interoperability.
IEEE 802.11 is a set of media access control (MAC) and physical
layer (PHY) specifications for implementing wireless local area
network (WLAN) computer communication in the 2.4, 3.6, 5, and
60 GHz frequency bands. They are created and maintained by the
IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee (IEEE 802). The base version
of the standard was released in 1997, and has had subsequent
amendments. The standard and amendments provide the basis
for wireless network products using the Wi-Fi brand. While each
amendment is officially revoked when it is incorporated in the
latest version of the standard, the corporate world tends to
market to the revisions because they concisely denote capabilities
2

of their products. As a result, in the market place, each revision

tends to become its own standard.
802.11 technology has its origins in a 1985 ruling by the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission that released the ISM band
for unlicensed use. In 1991 NCR Corporation/AT&T (now AlcatelLucent and LSI Corporation) invented a precursor to 802.11 in
Nieuwegein, The Netherlands. The inventors initially intended to
use the technology for cashier systems. The first wireless
products were brought to the market under the name Wave LAN
with raw data rates of 1 Mbit/s and 2 Mbit/s.
Vic Hayes, who held the chair of IEEE 802.11 for 10 years, and has
been called the "father of Wi-Fi", was involved in designing the
initial 802.11b and 802.11a standards within the IEEE. In 1999,
the Wi-Fi Alliance was formed as a trade association to hold the
Wi-Fi trademark under which most products are sold.
The original version of the standard IEEE 802.11 was released in
1997 and clarified in 1999, but is today obsolete. Thereafter
various standards namely 802.11 a,b,g,n emerged. They use
different technologies. The latest two standards which we use
now are 802.11ac and 802.11ad.
The use of Wi-Fi includes internet connection, device to device file
sharing, local networking etc. it is also notable that the latest
mobile communication standards are going to use Wi-Fi for their
micro cell based architecture.

CHAPTER 3

NEED FOR MULTI-GIGABIT WI-FI

Wi-Fi speed has proliferated keeping pace with the usage model
requirements. As of today, commercially available802.11n-based
Wi-Fi products support PHY data rates up to540 Mbps. Wi-Fi use
cases have evolved to beyond wireless LAN (Local Area
Networking) for access to the Internet. The following use cases
justify the need for multi-gigabit Wi-Fi.
Sync Data/File Transfer:
Multi-gigabit Wi-Fi tremendously reduces the time for data
synchronization between two devices. For example, a 1 GB file
transfer is at least 10 times faster (1 Gbps vs. 100 Mbps). In
home, enterprize, and public kiosk environments, time for
completion of the activity is critical for a good user experience.
Wireless LAN and Backbone Networks:
Multi-gigabit Wi-Fi enables faster access to the Internet by
improving the PHY data rate between the device and the AP
(Access Point) and between AP-to-AP in wireless backbone
networks.
Small-Cell Backhaul Network:
Mobile broadband data is growing at exponential rates. LTE(Long
Term Evolution) and 5G increase the capacity of the network
leveraging small cells but it has a major impact on the mobile
backhaul network design. Backhaul is the transmission link
between the small cell and the mobile network controller. Small
cell controllers will be deployed in the streets (lamp-posts, street
lights, etc.)and their deployment cost must be minimized. Fiber is
not a scalable or cost-efficient way to reach all small cell sites, so
a wireless solution will play a dominant role. The 60 GHz
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technology (802.11ad) is an excellent solution for small cell

backhaul since it offers more than one Gbps link with a low cost,
particularly no license fee. Thus, mobile broadband technologies
and multi-gigabit Wi-Fi complement each other.
Multi-media Streaming over IP:
Uncompressed video at 1920 1080p, 24 bits/pixel,and 60
frames/second generates 3 Gbps of data and requires at least 3
Gbps PHY data rate for wireless streaming. Conventional Wi-Fi can
only stream compressed multi-media contents. Multi-gigabit Wi-Fi
enables uncompressed multi-media content streaming, achieving
the high quality and low end-to-end latency requirements critical
for smooth user experience in wireless display use cases. Wi-Fi is
more suitable compared to wireless USB , WHDI (Wireless High
Definition Interface) , and WiHD (Wireless High Definition) for
wireless display, since the former has a larger deployment and
user awareness, besides support for IP-networking, ease of
connection, and standardized security mechanism.
Cellular Data Offloading:
The spectrum available for mobile data applications over cellular
networks is limited and even the advent of LTE radio access is
reaching the limits of Shannons law. Cellular data offloading is
one solution to increase the overall cellular network capacity by
offloading mobile data to Wi-Fi in high density places like
shopping malls, universities, enterprizes,etc. Multi-gigabit Wi-Fi in
this setting provides faster data transfer improving the overall WiFi network performance.

CHAPTOR 4

IEEE 802.11ac

IEEE 802.11ac is a wireless networking standard in the 802.11

family (which is marketed under the brand name Wi-Fi),
developed in the IEEE Standards Association process, providing
high-throughput wireless local area networks (WLANs) on the 5
GHz band. The standard was developed from 2011 through 2013
and approved in January 2014.
This specification has expected multi-station WLAN throughput of
at least 1 gigabit per second and a single link throughput of at
least 500 megabits per second (500 Mbit/s). This is accomplished
by extending the air interface concepts embraced by 802.11n:
wider RF bandwidth (up to 160 MHz), more MIMO spatial streams
(up to eight), downlink multi-user MIMO (up to four clients), and
high-density modulation (up to 256-QAM).

Now let us see the features of this standard.

1)Carrier frequency: IEEE 802.11ac is an amendment to the

IEEE 802.11 for VHT (Very High Throughput) operation in
frequency bands below 6 GHz, excluding 2.4 GHz, i.e., unlicensed
bands at 5 GHz band. Plurality of 802.11 a/b/g/n devices is
currently operating at 2.4 GHz crowding the channels and causing
bandwidth crunch and higher signal interference. The 5 GHz band
is comparatively cleaner with lower signal interference. The
number of non-overlapping channels (of 20 MHz each) available
at 5 GHz band is larger (24 in the US, up to 24 worldwide) as
compared to a few non overlapping channels at 2.4 GHz (3 in the
US), thus enabling channel bonding of 2 or more channels.
2)Channel bandwidth: Spectrum is composed of a number
of sub-bands including U-NII (Unlicensed National
Information Infrastructure)-1, 2, 2e, and 3 bands. The
support of DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection), originally
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defined in IEEE 802.11h, is mandatory to use UNII- 2 and 2e.

DFS is the mechanism to ensure that channels containing
radars are avoided by an AP and the energy is spread across
the wireless channel to reduce interference to satellites. IEEE
802.11ac supports 40 MHz, 80 MHz, and 160 MHz channel
bandwidth compared to only 20 MHz and 40 MHz supported
by 802.11n. The 160 MHz channel bandwidth is composed of
two 80 MHz channels that may or may not be contiguous.
The 80 MHz and 40 MHz channels are composed of two
contiguous 40 MHz and 20 MHz channels, respectively. The
support of 40 MHz and 80 MHz channel bandwidth is
mandatory while support of 160 MHz and 80+80 MHz is
optional. These wide channel bandwidths and minimized cochannel interference are challenging to achieve in a dense
WLAN environment (for example, enterprise deployment)
with plurality of APs deployed on non-overlapping channels.
The 802.11ac provides more spectrum and channel
bandwidth by relying on DFS channels, which many Wi-Fi
devices do not support today. 80 MHz channel bandwidth
allows 5 non-overlapping channels in the U.S. (channels 120128 are prohibited due to TDWR (Terminal Doppler Weather
Radar))and 5 in the UK/EU (channels 149 and higher require
light licensing for outdoor use only) when DFS is used, but
only 2channels in the U.S. and 1 in the UK/EU without DFS.
DFS is mandatory for 160 MHz channel bandwidth with 1 non
overlapping contiguous 160 MHz channel in the U.S. and 2in
the UK/EU.
3)MIMO: Higher data rate can be achieved with multiple
antenna system known as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple
Output) system. Data for transmission is divided into
independent data streams to be transmitted through
multiple antennas. This is known as spatial multiplexing.
Typically, a MIMO system has m transmit and n receive
antennas. The number of streams M is always less than or
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equal to the minimum number of antennas available in an

m_nMIMO system. The channel capacity C increases linearly
with M,
C = M x B x log2(1 + SNR),
Where B is the channel bandwidth and SNR is the signal tonoise ratio. The 802.11ac supports up to 8 spatial streams
compared to the maximum 4 in 802.11n.IEEE 802.11ac
supports MU-MIMO (Multi User-MIMO) as well as SU-MIMO
(Single User-MIMO). SU-MIMO is a method by which an AP
can transmit multiple independent streams at the same time
to a single device. MUMIMO as depicted is a technique by
which the AP can transmit multiple independent streams at
the same time to multiple devices. In 802.11ac, MU-MIMO
system supports 4 users with up to 4 spatial streams per
user with the total number of spatial streams not exceeding
8.Typically, many of todays CE devices have one transmit
and one receive antenna while the APs have m transmit and
n receive antennas. The MU-MIMO system is well suited for
downlink from AP in this situation as the network
performance is improved keeping the complexity of the
device side minimum by using only one receive antenna.
4) Modulation and coding scheme: According to
802.11ac the PHY data sub-carriers are modulated using
BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying), QPSK (Quadrature Phase
Shift Keying), 16-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation),
64-QAM, and 256-QAM. Note that 256-QAM is not supported
by 802.11n. FEC (Forward Error Correction) coding is used
with coding rates of 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, and 5/6. Use of BCC
(Binary Convolution Coding) is mandatory, but LDPC (LowDensity Parity-Check Coding) is optional.
5) Backward compatibility: IEEE 802.11ac is backward
compatible with 802.11n at 5 GHz ensuring the
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interoperability of 802.11ac and the already deployed

802.11n devices.

10

New technologies
New technologies introduced with 802.11ac include the following

Extended channel binding

Mandatory 80 MHz channel bandwidth for stations (vs.
40 MHz maximum in 802.11n), 160 MHz available
optionally
More MIMO spatial streams
Support for up to eight spatial streams (vs. four in
802.11n)
Downlink Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO, allows up to four
simultaneous downlink MU-MIMO clients)
Multiple STAs, each with one or more antennas,
transmit or receive independent data streams
simultaneously
Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA): streams not
separated by frequency, but instead resolved spatially,
analogous to 11n-style MIMO
Downlink MU-MIMO (one transmitting device, multiple
receiving devices) included as an optional mode
Modulation
256-QAM, rate 3/4 and 5/6, added as optional modes
(vs. 64-QAM, rate 5/6 maximum in 802.11n)
Other elements/features
Beamforming with standardized sounding and feedback
for compatibility between vendors (non-standard in

11

802.11n made it hard for beamforming to work

effectively between different vendor products)
MAC modifications (mostly to support above changes)
Coexistence mechanisms for 20/40/80/160 MHz
channels, 11ac and 11a/n devices.
Adds four new fields to the PPDU header identifying the
frame as a Very High Throughput (VHT) frame as
opposed to 802.11n's High Throughput (HT) or earlier.
The first three fields in the header are readable by
legacy devices to allow coexistence
Meru Networks has suggested that 802.11ac makes a
wireless network employing the Single Channel
Architecture substantially more effective. Traditional
802.11 networks are deployed as a Multiple Channel
Architecture

Mandatory and optional features

Mandatory features (carried over
from 802.11a/802.11g)
o 800 ns regular guard interval
o Binary convolutional coding (BCC)
o Single spatial stream
New mandatory features (newly introduced in
802.11ac)
o 80 MHz channel bandwidths
Optional features (carried over from 802.11n)
o two to four spatial streams
o Low-density parity-check code (LDPC)
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o Space-Time Block Coding (STBC)

o Transmit Beamforming (TxBF)
o 400 ns short guard interval (SGI)
Optional features (newly introduced in 802.11ac)
o five to eight spatial streams
o 160 MHz channel bandwidths (contiguous 80+80)
o 80+80 MHz channel bonding (discontiguous
80+80)
o MCS 8/9 (256-QAM)

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14

CHAPTER 5

IEEE 802.11ad
IEEE 802.11ad is an amendment that defines a new physical layer
for 802.11 networks to operate in the 60 GHz millimeter wave
spectrum. This frequency band has significantly different
propagation characteristics than the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands
where Wi-Fi networks operate. Products implementing the
802.11ad standard are being brought to market under the WiGig
brand name. The certification program is now being developed by
the Wi-Fi Alliance instead of the now defunct WiGig Alliance. The
peak transmission rate of 802.11ad is 7 Gbit/s.

The formation of the WiGig alliance to promote the IEEE 802.11ad

protocol was announced in May 2009. The completed version 1.0
WiGig specification was announced in December 2009. In May
2010, WiGig announced the publication of its specification, the
opening of its Adopter Program, and the liaison agreement with
the Wi-Fi Alliance to cooperate on the expansion of Wi-Fi
technologies. In June 2011, WiGig announced the release of its
certification-ready version 1.1 specification.
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The WiGig specification allows devices to communicate without

wires at multi-gigabit speeds. It enables high performance
wireless data, display and audio applications that supplement the
capabilities of previous wireless LAN devices. WiGig tri-band
enabled devices, which operate in the 2.4, 5 and 60 GHz bands,
deliver data transfer rates up to 7 Gbit/s, about as fast as an 8
antenna 802.11ac transmission, and nearly 50 times faster than
the highest 802.11n rate, while maintaining compatibility with
existing Wi-Fi devices. The 60 GHz signal cannot typically
penetrate walls but can propagate off reflections from walls,
ceilings, floors and objects using beamforming built into the WiGig
system. When roaming away from the main room the protocol can
switch to make use of the other lower bands at a much lower rate,
but which propagate through walls.

Features of 802.11ad include

1. Carrier frequency: 802.11ad is an amendment to 802.11 for
enhancements for multi-gigabit throughput in 60 GHz band.
Fig. 3 depicts the spectrum allocation for unlicensed
operation at 60 GHz. In this band, typically 7 GHz of
spectrum is available for unlicensed usage compared to 83.5
MHz in 2.4 GHz band. This standard defines 4 channels, each
with 2.16 GHz bandwidth, for operation at 60 GHz band.
These channels are 54 times wider than the 40 MHz bonded
channels available in 802.11n.
2. Modulation and coding scheme: 802.11ad defines both SC
(Single Carrier) modulation and OFDM (Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing) modulation. OFDM enables
longer distance communication and greater delay spreads.
This provides flexibility in handling obstacles and reflected
signals. OFDM allows SQPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64- QAM
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modulation with the maximum achievable PHY data rate of

6.756 Gbps. SC PHY is low on power consumption and
focusses on small form factor devices like handsets. SC uses
/2-BPSK, /2-QPSK, and /2-16-QAM modulation with the
maximum achievable PHY data rate of 4.620 Gbps. In this
standard, the data is encoded by a LDPC encoder with 1/2,
5/8, 3/4, and 13/16 code rates.
3. Beamforming: Signal attenuation is high at 60 GHz band and
hence link budgeting is challenging. To improve the signal
strength at the receiver, high gain antennas are deployed.
These high gain antennas, mostly phased-array antennas,
utilize beamforming to create beams in a particular direction
allowing the transmitted power to be focused.
4. Backward compatibility: The backward compatibility factor is
irrelevant as IEEE 802.11ad is the first standard for Wi-Fi
operation at 60 GHz.

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CHAPTER 6

MULTI-GIGABIT MODULATION AND

CODING SCHEMES
Multi-gigabit PHY data rates in 802.11ad are achieved by using a
large chunk of spectrum (2 GHz) with simple modulation schemes
(BPSK, QPSK), while in 802.11ac it is based on sending more bits
per symbol (256-QAM) and use of simultaneous data streams (up
to 8), because bandwidth is limited to a maximum of 160 MHz
(with channel bonding).

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Table I illustrates MCSs (Modulation and Coding Schemes)used in

802.11n, 802.11ac, and 802.11ad to achieve multimegabitand
multi-gigabit PHY data rates. Note that both 802.11n and
802.11ac support long guard interval of 800ns and optionally
short guard interval of 400 ns betweentransmission of two
symbols. The guard interval is 48.4 ns in802.11ad. Table I
assumes the long guard interval for 802.11nand 802.11ac. With
short guard interval, the data rates increaseaccordingly, e.g.,
802.11ns maximum data rate increases from540 Mbps to 600
Mbps, and 802.11acs maximum data rateincreases from 6.240
Gbps to 6.933 Gbps.
The 802.11n PHY data rates range from 6.5 Mbps to 600Mbps,
achieved through various combinations of modulationscheme,
code rate, channel bandwidth, guard interval, andnumber of
spatial streams. 802.11ac PHY data rates rangefrom 6.5 Mbps to
6.933 Gbps. PHY data rates achieved by802.11ac with 256-QAM
modulation scheme and by 802.11nwith 64-QAM modulation
scheme, 800 ns guard interval, 40MHz channel bandwidth, and 4
spatial streams is 720 Mbpsand 540 Mbps, respectively, i.e., a
33% increase in the PHYdata rate, thanks to 256-QAM modulation
scheme.802.11ad PHY data rates range from 385 Mbps to
6.7Gbps, achieved through combinations of modulation
schemeand code rate. For BPSK modulation scheme, PHY data
rateachieved by 802.11ad using 2.16 GHz channel bandwidth
and802.11n employing 20 MHz channel bandwidth is 385
Mbpsand 6.5 Mbps, respectively, i.e., a 58 times increase in
thePHY data rate, leveraging larger channel bandwidth.

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CHAPTER 7

CHALLENGES FOR MULTI-GIGABIT

WI-FI STANDARDS

Table II shows the receiver sensitivity and required

transmitterEVM (Error Vector Magnitude) values for some
keyMCSs of 802.11n, 802.11ac, and 802.11ad. A higher
receivesensitivity means that a higher signal strength (or SNR)
isrequired for detection. A lower EVM means that system
errorssuch as local oscillator phase noise, transmitter
nonlinearities,IQ imbalance, etc. must be controlled more
precisely.

A. Hardware Complexity and Power Consumption

802.11ad systems require a simpler hardware compared to
802.11ac, due to simpler modulation schemes and use of only
one stream of data (SISO vs. MIMO). To have multiple independent
data streams in 802.11ac, multiple RF and baseband chains are
required. In practice, for better radio link performance, the
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number of RX and TX chains may be larger than the number of

desired streams, NS (i.e., number of independent and separately
encoded transmit signals or streams). This implies more than NS
times increase in powerand RF chip/device area.
Even if intelligent power management is applied to TX,MIMO RX
system may consume at least NS times more power compared to
a single chain RX. Furthermore, the processing power required to
form MIMO streams must be added to the total power budget.

B. Device Form Factor

In a multiple antenna system the adjacent antennas must be
separated by a minimum distance, around half wavelength
(27mm for 802.11ac), to reduce the coupling between antennas
as well as correlation between streams. For applications where
size matters, this requirement limits the number of antennas,and
consequently, the number of streams and maximum bit rate.
At 60 GHz the carrier wavelength is only 5 mm, so relatively high
gain antennas can be implemented in a small package.For
example, a 13 dB patch array antenna printed on Duroid
substrate (r = 2.2) occupies an area of 5 mm 6 mm .So, instead
of using a dipole antenna with 2 dBi gain on eachside as in
802.11ac, a compact higher gain antenna can be used at each
end to compensate for the extra path loss.

C. Semiconductor Cost
CMOS technology is used for fabrication of Wi-Fi transceivers.
2.4/5 GHz band Wi-Fi transceivers can be synthesized with more
conventional CMOS technologies, which are cheaper whereas 60
21

GHz Wi-Fi transceivers can only be synthesized with the state-ofthe-art CMOS technology (65nm, 40 nm, etc.) As of today, 40 nm
CMOS technology is expensive, thus making 802.11ad
transceivers costly compared to 802.11ac transceivers.

CHAPTER 8

802.11AC AND 802.11AD

SUITABILITY FOR
MULTI-GIGABIT USE CASES
Considering the challenges discussed in Section V an important
question is raised: are 802.11ac and 802.11ad suitable for the
same type of applications, or there are preferred classes of
applications for each one?
To answer this question, first we need to get a better idea of wave
propagation at 5 GHz and 60 GHz bands. At 60 GHz spectrum,
radio signals suffer from higher propagation and atmospheric loss
compared to 5 GHz. For the same range,free space loss at 60 GHz
is 21 dB more than free space lossat 5 GHz (e.g. for 1 m range
free space loss is 68 dB at60 GHz, and 47 dB at 5.5 GHz). Note
that general rule of thumb is every 6 dB increase in propagation
loss halves the coverage distance. Furthermore, obstruction loss
is significant at 60 GHz. For example, a human body loss is
between 20-40dB.

22

Therefore, 802.11ad is more appropriate for line-of-sightroomscale, low-cost, short-range very high throughput
applications,such as in-room (i) uncompressed and lightly
compressed multi-media wireless display, (ii) sync
data/filetransfer, etc. IEEE 802.11ac is proper for longer-range
high throughput applications, such as in-home (i) WLAN, (ii)
(lightly) compressed multi-media wireless display, etc.
Insummary, IEEE 802.11ad leveraging small device form
factorand low power consumption characteristics is apt for
portablepower-constraint multi-gigabit wireless devices.
While 802.11ac seems to be more appropriate for longer range
applications, the transmitter power regulatory and
powerconsumption requirements limit the applicability to the
different use cases. As seen in Tables I and II, 802.11ac requires48 dBm receive sensitivity with 256-QAM modulation and upto 8
spatial streams to achieve multi-gigabit Wi-Fi. To deploy the
highest data rates of 802.11ac AC-powered units are more
suitable. Since the obstruction loss at 5 GHz is lower comparedto
60 GHz, multi-gigabit 802.11ac is more appropriate for homescale (both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight) wireless
applications where portability is not a bottleneck.
On a different note, at 60 GHz high gain antennas with low cost
and small size can be realized for point to point applications such
as small-cell backhaul networks. Despite lower propagation loss at
5 GHz band, strict regulatory requirements limit the transmit
power proportional to thetransmitter antenna gain. Thus range
extension required for backhaul networks cannot be achieved at 5
GHz.

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CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION
In this seminar the need of multi-gigabit Wi-Fi links is articulated.
We introduce two emerging standards likely to shake the wireless
world: 802.11ac and 802.11ad, highlight the challenges in the
path of multi-gigabit Wi-Fi, and discuss suitability of 802.11ac and
802.11ad for supporting multi- gigabit use cases. Wi-Fi is booming
rapidly and is used for wireless connectivity between devices in
plethora of scenarios. It remains to be seen how the consumer
market responds to multi-gigabit Wi-Fi link capabilities.

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