Apple iPhone XS and XS Max might support 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6)

[Balance]

According to Tech Insights the new iPhones use a Broadcom BCM4377 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth wireless combo SoC. The BCM4377 is not publicly listed, and probably custom made for Apple. The closest related however is the BCM4375, also a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo chip. And it supports 802.11ax (recently branded as Wi-Fi 6 by the Wi-Fi Alliance).

BCM4375
Dual-Band 802.11ax Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 5.0+ Combo Chip
The BCM4375 simultaneously implements two streams of 802.11ax with Bluetooth 5.0+ to enable Wi-Fi speeds up to 1.429 Gb/s on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Features

• Support for two streams of 802.11ax
• Bluetooth 5.0+ including Low-Energy Long Range (LELR)
• Real Simultaneous Dual-Band (RSDB)
• 1.429 Gbps PHY rate
• 1024 QAM modulation
• OFDMA
• MU-MIMO

 

[Internet Man]

It looks like BCM4377 is stamped over BCM4359 in the image from Tech Insights. The BCM4359 is a 2x2 802.11ac chip for smartphones. Some details are available on AnandTech. The BCM4361 and BCM4371 were also 2x2 802.11ac parts with the BCM4361 (Samsung Galaxy S8) having BT 5.0. I wouldn't assume that the BCM4377 is a revised BCM4375 quite yet.

The Test Report document at the FCC says, "There are two vendors of the WiFi/Bluetooth radio modules: variant 1 and variant 2. The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth radio modules have the same mechanical outline (e.g., the same package dimension and pin-out layout), use the same on-board antenna matching circuit, have an identical antenna structure, and are built and tested to conform to the same specifications and to operate within the same tolerances."

I wonder if this refers to the BCM4359 and BCM4377. It may also refer to identical packages from USI and Broadcom.