Broadcom, a maker of chips designed for networking purposes, announced some additional plans it has around the new and still-in-development Wi-Fi standard currently being polished by the IEEE.  The company will be offering up new chips based on the 802.11ac standard for general availability starting sometime in the second half of the year according to execs, and it plans to add several more layers to the technology in order to differentiate the offerings from that of competitors.

The Register picked up some of the details. The main innovation is “implicit beam forming” – the chips won’t be transmitting signals all around them, but will instead directly target nearby devices and thus increase speed. It works without any costly upgrades or add-ons, which means that the price tag also falls in with the rest of the appeal.

Broadcom’s engineers have taken several measures to ensure that the technology will work when the chips finally ship.

“The effects of wireless interference, whether from existing Wi-Fi systems or other radio technologies, have also been addressed. Broadcom’s chips use spectrum analysis to identify likely patterns of interference and then uses on-board algorithms to try and tune out competing signals. ‘Airtime fairness’ features are also included to speed up packet handling for faster clients.”

WiFi and mobile are two of the key areas of focus for the company, which will most likely be addressed – along with Broadcom’s work on fleshing out the new standard – during the official IGNITION West keynotes by CEO Scott McGregor and other executives.

The new 802.11ac chips are developed for speed, following the legacy of the standard itself, which is already receiving a lot of recognition throughout the industry. Cost-efficiency is also an area of importance for the industry based on the latest news, a path that worked out for ARM during its recent earnings call. Broadcom, on the other hand didn’t perform so well, although shareholders remain confident.