Atheros Communications launched its second generation XSPAN draft 2.0 802.11n family of chipset solutions, predicting an expansion of the market in the second half of the year. Like Atheros' previous generation XSPAN products, the new AR9001 family is compliant to the latest IEEE draft 2.0 802.11n specification.
Atheros said 802.11n end-products are now poised for broader adoption by consumers who want the higher-performance and future-proofing benefits of 802.11n for home and small office networks. Its new generation of silicon delivers higher levels of integration for lower costs in consumer networking products. Specifically, the new SoCs integrate Atheros' 802.11n MAC/baseband and 400MHz Wireless Network Processor (WNPU) into a single chip. 
Two versions of the SoC target the most popular consumer router configurations: the AR9130 with 2x2 MIMO and Fast Ethernet support and the AR9132 with 3x3 MIMO and Gigabit Ethernet support. The SoCs are paired with a newly enhanced AR910x single-chip radio transceiver, featuring single- (2.4 GHz) and dual-band (2.4/5 GHz) options, to form a series of AR9001AP chipsets. Four chipset configurations are being introduced:
- AR9001AP-2NG: 11n single-band with 2x2 MIMO, Fast Ethernet
- AR9001AP-2NX: 11n dual-band configurable with 2x2 MIMO, Fast Ethernet
- AR9001AP-3NG: 11n single-band with 3x3 MIMO, Gigabit Ethernet
- AR9001AP-3NX: 11n dual-band configurable with 3x3 MIMO, Gigabit Ethernet
Atheros is also introducing a dual-band capable 802.11n USB chipset. Wi-Fi USB adapters provide after-market wireless connectivity to a variety of consumer devices - laptop and desktop PCs, gaming consoles and PVRs/home gateways. Atheros' USB family consists of entry-level and high- performance USB designs:
- AR9001U-2X: 11n dual-band with 2x2 MIMO
- AR9001U-2NG: 11n single-band with 2x2 MIMO
- AR9001U-NG: 11n single-band with 1x2 MIMO
In addition, Atheros is launching a dual-concurrent 802.11n AP/router design supporting simultaneous use of both WLAN frequency bands to deliver up to 600Mbps aggregate physical data rate.
http://www.atheros.com
