The new chip with two spatial streams will deliver 867Mbps, which Marvell claims is not only three times faster than two-stream 11n, but six times faster than LTE. The chip supports both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, though 11ac itself requires the higher frequency. Marvell has cut the costs of the bill of materials by 75% compared to the previous chip model, and reduced its size by 40%.

Another Wi-Fi standard supported in the new chip is 802.11v, an integrated Wi-Fi location technique: It measures the "flight time" of packets from a client radio to the AP and then uses this to calculate location within a diameter of about 9 feet.

Marvell will begin sampling the new chip in July, with full production scheduled to start in 2013 and ramp up. The Wi-Fi Alliance currently plans to begin interoperability testing and certification for 11ac products by the end of Q1 2013, based on the nearly final IEEE document. Giordano predicts the first Wi-Fi-certified 11ac retail products will begin appearing in mid-2013.

Initially, chips such as this one from Marvell will be more costly than comparable two-stream 11n chips, sometimes as much as two times the price. That may be reflected in higher retail prices. But Giordano says the price difference between 11n and 11ac single-chip products will quickly fall as production lines increase their output.

John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World. Twitter: @johnwcoxnww Email: john_cox@nww.com Blog RSS feed: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/2989/feed