Atheros Introduces Dual-radio 802.11n Router Platform

Atheros Communications introduced its XSPAN 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.


Atheros said its new 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.


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.


The AR9002AP solutions is currently sampling to key customers.http://www.atheros.com