Atheros Communications has begun sampling a 10G Ethernet passive optical networking (EPON) system-on-chip (SoC) solution for broadband access, mobile backhaul and cable uplink applications. Atheros is offering a chipset solution for both 10G optical line terminals (OLTs) and for a 10G optical network unit (ONU), which could be used in customer premise equipment and cellular base stations. The SoCs comply with the new IEEE 802.3av standard.
The SoCs integrate all of the media access, traffic management and switching components needed to build OLT and ONU equipment, including the 10G and 1G EPON media access controllers (MACs), a MIPS24KEc processor, configurable DDR2 and DDR3 controllers, a serializer/deserializer (SerDes), and standard 10G Ethernet, SGMII and XAUI interfaces.
Atheros' 10G EPON solutions offer asymmetric mode, which provides reliable 10 Gbps downstream and 1 Gbps upstream performance. The solutions will be upgradable with symmetric mode to provide full 10 Gbps performance in all-10G networks, while maintaining compatibility with legacy 1G systems. This not only provides a cost-effective way for carriers to upgrade their networks gradually, but is an important feature of the 802.3av standard.http://www.atheros.com
- In July 2010, Atheros acquired Opulan Technologies, a privately held Chinese fabless semiconductor company specializing in solutions for passive optical networking (PON) and broadband access aggregation (MUX). Atheros said the acquisition further expands its end-to-end (WAN-to-LAN) architecture consisting of Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Powerline solution.
- In January 2011, Qualcomm disclosed plans to acquire Atheros Communications in a deal valued at about $3.1 billion at the time of the announcement.
