Atheros's 4th Gen Chips Double Range of Wi-Fi

Atheros Communications introduced its fourth generation WLAN chipset featuring new technologies for extending the range and reducing the power consumption of 802.11 wireless networks. Atheros said its eXtended Range (XR) technology gives Wi-Fi products twice the range of existing designs, while offering power-saving design improvements that reduce 802.11a/g power consumption by 60% over 802.11b solutions.


Atheros' new chipsets feature a signal processing architecture that embeds separate optimized designs for high performance, high signal-to-noise and long range, low signal-to-noise ratio environments. The architecture delivers receive sensitivities of up to --105dBm, over 20 dB better than the 802.11 specification. The new chipsets also feature the company's Super G and Super A/G technology, which delivers 108Mbps data links with actual end user TCP/IP throughput of up to 90Mbps in 802.11a/b/g, 802.11b/g and 802.11a wireless networks. Super G and Super A/G are backward compatible with conventional 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11a products, and also support mixed-mode operation with Atheros and third-party solutions in the same network.


The company said a single access point using its chipset would be able to cover multi-story brick or masonry homes. Atheros also claims the new chipset enables Wireless Internet Service Providers to deploy public hot spots with coverage cells up to a kilometer wide.
http://www.atheros.com