The SX-PCEAD implements the IEEE802.11ad WiFi/WiGig standard in 60GHz band for high speed communication. It is based on the QCA6320 chipset from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.. The 60GHz frequency band supports much wider bandwidths than those of the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz bands. Thus it can achieve a maximum PHY data rate of 4.6Gbps using 2GHz bandwidth. Signals in 60GHz band do not easily penetrate walls etc. so it is an ideal technology for short range in-room use cases such as IP docking, transferring multimedia content such as 4K videos and images, video streaming and projection, insanely fast movie downloads from kiosks, high resolution medical imaging, etc.

High performance is achieved by using Tx/Rx beamforming using a special array of tiny antennas implemented in a separate RF antenna module. The SX-PCEAD is a pre-certified module for North America, Europe, and Japan. In order to expedite your product development process, Silex can provide both hardware and software engineering services including custom application development, as well as turnkey product design and  manufacturing.

SX-PCEAD Block Diagram 

The SX-PCEAD comes in many flavors for fulfill everyone’s needs. There is a M.2 Type 1216 -S3 surface mount PCIE module. Next we have an evaluation board; the SX-PCEAD-EVB that converts it into a PCI FMC via two layers of adapter boards. Then we at Silex went a step further. We have defined the SX-PCEAD-EVK an easy to use product that delivers a great out of the box experience for our customers.

We pre-install the Ubuntu Linux OS distribution and add the host driver and firmware into this release. The result is an easy to use evaluation kit for everyone who is interested in playing with a real life up close experience with an insanely fast WiFi technology that meant for everyone.