Atheros XSPAN Enhances Home Networking with Smart, High-Capacity Routing Platform

Atheros XSPAN Enhances Home Networking with Smart, High-Capacity Routing Platform

Industry-Leading 802.11n Technology Brings Cost and Design Efficiencies of the World’s First Shipping Single-Chip 11n to Dual-Radio Routers

COMPUTEX, TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 2, 2008 — Atheros Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHR), a leading developer of advanced semiconductor system solutions for wireless and wired communications, today announced the XSPAN AR9002AP, the industry’s first single-board, dual-radio router platform featuring single-chip 802.11n technology. The AR9002AP platform provides up to 600 Mbps of wireless networking capacity to support the growing number of devices on the home network—simultaneously. It features the highest level of chip and system integration to significantly lower the cost of dual-concurrent routers and provides access to the complete Wi-Fi spectrum. Atheros will demonstrate its new XSPAN platform at COMPUTEX in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3-7, 2008, in its Technology Suite (#2407/2408) at the Grand Hyatt Taipei.

The AR9002AP platform leverages the efficiencies of single-chip 11n technologies to significantly reduce the cost of dual-radio networking products. It features the AR9220 and AR9223 11n single-chip radio/MAC/BB designs to support the 5 and 2.4 GHz bands, respectively. At the core of the AR9002AP platform is Atheros’ AR7161 high-performance, 680MHz wireless networking CPU—engineered to maximize 802.11n performance. The platform also offers Atheros ETHOS AR8216 Fast Ethernet or AR8316 Gigabit Ethernet switch options. The system has been integrated on a single, compact circuit board that requires up to 50 percent fewer components than competitive solutions on the market.

Dual Radios Leverage the Full WLAN Spectrum

The AR9002AP delivers on the promise of 802.11n by efficiently distributing bandwidth- hungry multimedia content while also supporting data applications on the home network. This capability is achieved through concurrent operation in both the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, which each provide 300 Mbps PHY rates. The combined bands also enable access to the full spectrum of 27 non-overlapping WLAN channels.

With simultaneous operation in both bands, the router can rely on the relatively interference-free 5GHz band to support latency-sensitive, high-bandwidth applications like HD video streaming, while off-loading latency-tolerant data transmissions such as email and Internet browsing to the more interference-prone 2.4GHz band. This delegation of applications also allows the 2.4GHz band to support legacy 802.11g Wi-Fi devices, which can slow down 11n networks, leaving the 5GHz band free to provide the optimized 11n performance required for smooth media transmissions.

XSPAN Solutions Address the Growing Demand for Advanced Home Networking

Today the home wireless network supports an increasing number of devices, including multiple PCs, set-top boxes and PVRs, Wi-Fi-enabled gaming products, mobile handsets, PMPs and even wireless cameras, picture frames and printers. This growing demand requires that the home router offer universal connectivity to any 802.11-enabled device and broad networking capacity to support multiple users and applications simultaneously. The AR9002AP readily addresses these evolving WLAN requirements in a highly cost-effective design.

“Dual-band 802.11n implementations are essential to the future of wireless LAN,” said Craig Mathias, a Principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group. “Coming from the company that pioneered 5GHz and dual-radio WLANs, the AR9002AP capitalizes on Atheros’ long history and expertise in building highly-integrated and complete system solutions that are also remarkably cost-effective.”

“As the variety and number of devices on the home network expand, it is important that wireless LANs be future-proofed for high-capacity, universal connectivity,” said Todd Antes, vice president of wireless networking and computing for Atheros. “The AR9002AP will enable a new generation of dual-radio products which can efficiently multi-task, sharing capacity for media content and data applications throughout the home.”

Atheros iQUE Delivers Networking Intelligence for a Quality User Experience

The AR9002AP platform is the first to offer iQUE, Atheros’ new quality of service technology suite designed to enhance wireless networking in the home. iQUE intelligently manages and prioritizes network traffic from the wide area network (WAN) and on the WLAN to optimize the utilization of network capacity. The enhanced throughput of typical 11n routers offers only part of the solution, the effective management of that capacity is required to ensure a quality user experience.

On the WAN, Atheros iQUE technology employs classification and prioritization algorithms, which analyze packets transmitted or received over broadband to optimize the flow of content in the home network. On the WLAN, the AR9002AP utilizes several advanced Quality-of-Service (QoS) techniques including video transmission control algorithms and multicast-to-unicast translation to ensure fluid delivery of video and other digital content.

The AR9002AP platform complies with industry standards 802.11e, WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia) and WMM PowerSave. It also features Atheros UAPSD (Universal Advanced Power Save) technology, which enhances the battery-life of mobile devices connected to the AR9002AP-based routers.

Worldwide Dynamic Frequency Selection Compliance

Atheros complies with all government regulations for Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) as required by countries around the world. Atheros has implemented state-of-regulatory DFS in all of its 5GHz AP platforms, including the new AR9002AP solution. For more details on DFS, please view the new technical whitepaper, “New Worldwide Regulatory Requirements for Wireless LANs” at http://www.atheros.com/pt/tech_overview/DFS_app_note.pdf.

Availability

The AR9002AP solutions is currently sampling to key customers.