Atheros jazzes up its 11n chip product line

Atheros Communications this week is unveiling three chipsets that are designed to be company’s second generation of draft 2 802.11n high-throughput wireless LANs.

The new silicon, to be demonstrated at next week’s Computex trade show in Taiwan, is aimed at different WLAN segments: dual-radio access points for enterprise and small to midsize businesses, as well as for high-end consumer nets; single radio access points, combining radio and network processor in one chip; and USB-based adapters that can be plugged into any client USB port to give a laptop or handheld 11n connectivity.

All three chipsets form the new AR9001 product line, and Atheros says each radio will have a data rate of 300Mbps, resulting in about 200Mbps of useable throughput. The new silicon offers greater chip-level integration and more antenna options to reduce costs and provide a range of performance for new access points and routers expected to appear in late 2007. The USB product will be available in early 2008. The goal, Atheros says, is to drive 11n adoption in a wider array of access points and client devices.

Atheros says the products comply with draft 2 of the IEEE 802.11n standard and all will be submitted to the Wi-Fi Alliance interoperability testing, which starts in June.

The new AR9001A-3NX2 chipset is designed to be the heart of powerful high-end enterprise access points. It combines two 11n Media Access Control baseband chips, Atheros’ powerful 600MHz wireless network processor, and two 11n single-chip radios -- one in the 2.4GHz band and the other in the 5GHz band. The radio chips can run simultaneously and when both support 11n, they together deliver the 600Mbps aggregate data rate. The 2.4GHz radio can be reserved for existing 11b/g clients.

The radio chips are configured with three multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas, the maximum number Atheros supports. MIMO is one of the key technologies in dramatically boosting throughput for 11n networks. A 3x3 antenna configuration means that the three antennas can both transmit and receive in conjunction with another MIMO radio. Also part of the 3NX2 product is a Gigabit Ethernet interface to the LAN or WAN.

A variant of this silicon combination is designed for the consumer market. This model integrates into one chip a single 11n baseband along with the 400MHz Atheros network processor, with a single-chip 11n radio configured with two or three MIMO antennas. The radio chip can be a single-band 2.4GHz or a dual-band chip for either 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

The new USB client designs will let Atheros power thumb-sized 11n adapters for notebooks, handhelds, printers, network-attached storage and home gateways. Three versions will be available: a dual-band radio with 2x2 antennas is intended as a high-end product, and two single-band versions, including a 1x2 antenna configuration for entry-level adapters.

The AR9001 products are available in sample quantities to equipment makers with volume production expected in the third quarter of 2007.