Atheros Debuts Single-Chip 802.11n for Home Gateways

Atheros Communications introduced two single-chip 802.11n solutions designed for the carrier gateway market. The new dual-band, 2.4GHz/5GHz, AR9220 and single-band, 2.4GHz AR9223 PCI designs are part of the Atheros XSPAN family of draft 802.11n solutions. Routers based on these new XSPAN PCI solutions will deliver 10 times the throughput and nearly twice the range of legacy 802.11g and 802.11a/g networks.



The AR9220 dual-band, 2x2 MIMO, PCI design is designed for high-end, multiplay gateways and set-top boxes supporting IPTV, HD video streaming, VoIP calls and multi-player online gaming on the 5GHz channel-while using the 2.4GHz band for simple data networking. This solution provides leading 802.11a/g/n performance, supporting up to 300 Mbps physical data rates and 200 Mbps of actual user throughput on both the uplink and the downlink.



The AR9223 single-band, 2x2 MIMO PCI design is aimed at basic home gateways with up to 300 Mbps physical data rates. The single-band option offers carriers a natural migration path from 11g to 11n in the 2.4GHz band, and is suited for applications less sensitive to bandwidth limitations and interference, such as web surfing, VoIP calls, audio streaming and wireless printing.



The PCI interface allows for direct integration on DSL motherboards, easing carrier manufacturers' design cycles to accelerate time-to-market. The chips also feature advanced power efficiencies for greener gateways that reduce energy consumption.



Atheros said it has targeted the performance and price points that carriers need to broadly deploy home gateways capable of supporting data, voice and video on a single wireless network.

http://www.atheros.com/