Inside the TP-LINK BE6500 7DR6560 Wi-Fi 7 Router

TP-LINK BE6500 7DR6560 is a new Wi-Fi 7 router from TP-LINK. Let us explore the inside.

The 7DR6560 box:

TL-7DR6560 Easy Turbo version, EasyMESH 3.0, with four 2.5G ports.

The product and accessories:

It uses a 12V/2.5A power adapter. In testing, standby power was 9.2W with one 1Gbps optical-modem LAN port connected. With all four 2.5Gbps ports connected, consumption reached 12.8W, which is relatively high.

Front:

Rear:

There are four 2.5G network ports and a TURBO button on the right. TURBO is enabled by default.

The width is approximately that of an A4 sheet of paper.

Bottom:

Remove the two screws on the bottom and open the case.

There are four external antennas: dual-band antennas on the left and right, and two single-band 5G antennas in the center.

Top of the motherboard:

Remove the aluminum heatsink:

Then remove the shielding cover:

The SPI-NAND chip is a GD5F1GM7REYIG from Gigadevice, with a capacity of 1Gb (128MB) using SLC NAND Flash.

Remove the bottom of the motherboard.

Remove the second shielding cover.

The CPU is the Qualcomm IPQ5322.

Judging by standby power consumption, the manufacturing process has not improved much and may still be 14nm.

The Qualcomm IPQ53xx family has five models: IPQ5332, IPQ5322, IPQ5312, IPQ5302, and IPQ5300.

The specifications of IPQ5332 and IPQ5322 are reportedly identical. The difference is that IPQ5332 is an enterprise-grade chip made with higher-quality components, so it can operate more reliably in harsh environments.

IPQ5332 and IPQ5322 can be configured with up to three PCI-e 3.0 x1 interfaces, or one PCI-e 3.0 x2 and one PCI-e 3.0 x1.

Ethernet is configured as 5GE+10GE with two USXGMII interfaces. USXGMII can connect to one 10G PHY, two 5G PHYs, or four 2.5G PHYs.

IPQ5322 has two USXGMII interfaces: one can support 10G and the other 5G. Port speed depends on the switch or PHY connected to it. The source notes that these details may or may not be completely accurate.

RAM capacity is 1GB, using NT5AD512M16C4-JR, DDR4-3200Mbps.

The IPQ5322 integrates 2x2 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, supports 802.11be, and reaches up to 688Mbps with 40MHz bandwidth. Two external FEM chips are used, model KCT8280HE.

KCT8280HE specifications:

Integrated high performance 2.4GHz PA, LNA with bypass, and T/R switch Fully-matched input and output Integrated RF & DC power detector Transmit gain: 31.5dB at 5V Receive gain: 13.5dB at 5V Noise figure: 1.6dB at 5V

Output power: +21.5dBm @ -43dB DEVM, EHT40/MCS13, 5V +22.5dBm @ -40dB DEVM, HE40/MCS11, 5V +24.0dBm @ -35dB DEVM, VHT40/MCS9, 5V +25.0dBm @ -30dB DEVM, HT20/MCS7, 5V ESD protection circuitry on all PINs Minimal external components required Small package: LGA-16L, 3mm x 3mm x 0.76mm (MSL3, 260 oC per JEDEC J-STD-020) RoHS and REACH compliant

The 5GHz Wi-Fi chip in the TP-LINK BE7500/7DR6560 is Qualcomm QCN6224.

QCN6224 uses 4x4 MIMO and 160MHz with 4096-QAM, reaching a maximum wireless rate of 5765Mbps.

There are four external 5GHz FEM chips, model KCT8580HE, also made by Shanghai Kangxi Communications.

KCT8580HE specifications:

Integrated 802.11be 5GHz PA, LNA with bypass and T/R switch Fully-matched input and output Integrated RF & DC power detector Transmit gain: 30.0d8 at 5V Receive gain: 16.5d8 at 5V Noise figure: 1.7d8 at 5V

Output power: +19.5dBm @ 43dB DEVMEHT160/MCS13 5V +22.5dBm @ -40dB DEVM, HE160/MCS11, 5V +24.5dBm @ -35dB DEVM,VHT80MCS9,5V +25.5dBm 0 -30dB DEVM HT20/MCS7.5V ESD protection circuitry on all PINsMinimal external components required Small package: QFN-16L 3mm x 3mm x 0.75mm (MSL3, 260’C per JEDEC J-STD-020) RoHS and REACH Compliant

The switch chip is QCA8386, connected to four 2.5G ports.

The total bandwidth of the four ports does not exceed 5Gbps.

Unlike Xiaomi BE7000, QCA8084 is a four-port 2.5G PHY supporting USXGMII, allowing its four 2.5G ports to share 10Gbps of bandwidth:

The reason these four 2.5G ports share 5Gbps is the QCA8386 switch, not the IPQ5322 CPU. The same design is used in the Xiaomi BE6500 Pro and other devices using the IPQ5322+QCA8386 combination.

Why not use QCA8084? Because IPQ5322 does not integrate four 2.5G MACs.

In practice, the 5Gbps four-port bottleneck is much less noticeable than the 1Gbps bottleneck on the Xiaomi AX6000. It is difficult to reach this limit. If simultaneous high-volume transfers are required, an inexpensive 8-port 2.5G switch can be added.

2.5G network transformer:

DC buck-converter circuit:

This component tour ends here. For speed tests, see the original article at acwifi.net .

A Vietnamese seller was offering this router on Shopee. On January 16, 2024, the listed price was 2,555,000 VND; check the listing .