1
Introduction
1.1 General description
The QCA9994 with Qualcomm
®
VIVE
TM
802.11ac technology is a highly integrated wireless local area
network (WLAN) system-on-chip (SoC) for 5 GHz 802.11ac. The QCA9994 is a synthesizer WLAN ra-
dio with 160 MHz and 80+80 MHz support. It includes a CPU and memory for WLAN media access
layer (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) management and provides host offload of other high-level net-
working tasks. It enables high-performance 4x4 MIMO with 4 spatial streams for wireless applications
demanding the highest robust link quality and maximum throughput and range, plus 4 spatial stream
MU-MIMO. The QCA9994 integrates a multi-protocol MAC, PHY, analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog
converters (ADC/DAC), 4x4 MIMO radio transceivers, and PCIE interface in an all-CMOS device for
low power consumption and small form-factor applications.
The QCA9994 implements half-duplex OFDM, supporting 1.733 Gbps for 802.11ac 160/80+80/80 MHz
channel operation in 5 GHz mode, and IEEE 802.11a/n/ac data rates. Additional features include 802.11ac
explicit transmit beamforming (TxBF), 802.11 compatible implicit TxBF, multi-user MIMO (MU-
MIMO), Dynamic Bandwidth Switching, Per Packet Switching between 4SS/80 MHz and 2SS/160/80+80
MHz, Maximal Likelihood (ML) decoding, Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC), Maximal Ratio Combin-
ing (MRC), Space Time Block Code (STBC), and On-Chip OneTime Programmable (OTP) memory to
eliminate the need for an external flash and to further reduce the external component count and BOM cost.
The QCA9994 supports 802.11 wireless MAC protocol, 802.11i security, Wi-Fi offload, error recovery,
and 802.11e quality of service (QoS).
The QCA9994 supports up to four simultaneous spatial streams integrating four Tx and four Rx chains for
high throughput and extended coverage. Tx chains combine PHY in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) signals,
convert them to the desired frequency, and drive the RF signal through external power amplifiers (PAs). Rx
chains receive from antennas through external LNAs. The frequency synthesizer supports 1-MHz steps to
match frequencies defined by IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac specifications. The QCA9994 supports frame data
transfer to and from the host using a PCIE interface that supports interrupt generation and reporting and
status reporting. Other external interfaces include EEPROM and GPIOs.
