Rohde & Schwarz Teams Up With NETGEAR

Rohde & Schwarz has partnered with NETGEAR to accelerate the development of next-generation Wi-Fi 8 access points.

NETGEAR has chosen the R&S CMP180 radio communication tester and integrated it into its design validation environment to speed up delivery of performance‑optimised Wi‑Fi products.

Wi‑Fi 8, built on the forthcoming IEEE 802.11bn standard, focuses on ultra‑high reliability (UHR) WLAN. It aims to deliver consistently fast, low‑latency connectivity across homes, offices and industrial settings, enabling immersive applications such as augmented and virtual reality for gaming, learning and work.

Validating Wi‑Fi 8 access points demands test solutions that support features including distributed resource units (DRU) and unequal modulation (UEQM), operation with channel bandwidths up to 320 MHz across all supported bands, and 4096QAM. It also requires tight EVM performance and scalable 4x4 MIMO to fine‑tune wireless device behaviour.

Rohde & Schwarz is supplying NETGEAR with the CMP180, a future‑proof, non‑signalling tester for research, development, validation and production. The instrument supports multiple cellular and non‑cellular technologies, including Wi‑Fi 6E, Wi‑Fi 7, Wi‑Fi 8 and 5G NR FR1, covering frequencies up to 8 GHz and bandwidths up to 500 MHz.

The CMP180 integrates two analysers, two generators and two times eight RF ports in a single chassis and can be scaled further by stacking units. This delivers a cost‑efficient, best‑in‑class platform that meets current and emerging test needs. Its fast multi‑DUT capability suits mass production, while engineers can deploy it throughout the lifecycle from EVT and DVT to PVT and full‑scale manufacturing.

Joseph Emmanuel, VP, Consumer Business Unit HW Engineering at NETGEAR, said: "Working with Rohde & Schwarz enables us to bring our Wi-Fi 8 products on the market with the expected high quality and extremely high performance for the best multi-gigabit Wi-Fi experience everywhere at home."

Goce Talaganov, Vice President Mobile Radio Testers at Rohde & Schwarz, said: "We are grateful for the close collaboration with NETGEAR on the latest Wi-Fi 8 technology. Our experience in wireless device testing and early cooperation with Wi-Fi 8 chipset and device vendors helped us to improve our test solution for the upcoming broad Wi-Fi 8 market."

rohde-schwarz.com