Physics / mechanism
Wireless communication encodes information onto electromagnetic carriers via modulation (AM/FM/QAM/OFDM), propagating through free space or guided media. Key parameters: carrier frequency (GHz–THz), bandwidth (MHz–GHz), spectral efficiency (bits/s/Hz), link budget (EIRP, path loss, noise figure), and latency. Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) delivers ~46 Gbps theoretical via 320 MHz channels and multi-link operation. 5G NR (FR2, mmWave) hits ~4 Gbps peak but suffers severe path loss above 28 GHz, demanding dense small-cell deployment. 6G targets sub-THz bands (100–300 GHz), sub-ms latency, and integrated sensing+comms. Antenna count (massive MIMO, 64–256 elements) and beamforming DSP are now primary performance levers.
Competitive landscape
5G/NR mmWave, Wi-Fi 7, and UWB compete directly for indoor/short-range high-throughput use cases. Satellite constellations (Starlink, OneWeb) address wide-area low-latency differently. At the component level: GaAs/GaN RF front-ends (Skyworks, Qorvo) vs. bulk CMOS RF (MediaTek, Qualcomm) trade efficiency for integration. Sub-THz links compete with FSO (free-space optical) for last-mile backhaul.
| Approach | Throughput | Range | Integration cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| mmWave 5G (28/39 GHz) | ~4 Gbps | 100–300 m | High (GaN FEM) |
| Wi-Fi 7 (6 GHz) | ~10 Gbps indoor | <50 m | Medium (CMOS) |
| Sub-THz (100–300 GHz) | >100 Gbps (lab) | <10 m | Emerging (InP/SiGe) |
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.