Atheros WLAN chipsets feature breakthrough technologies to extend the range and reduce the power consumption of 802.11 wireless networks. When they are incorporated into WLAN devices, Atheros chipsets offer end users extended range, longer battery life, and network management tools that help reduce the cost of operating and owning wireless networks.

Atheros Advanced Feature Highlights

Atheros XSPAN™
Atheros XSPAN™ with Signal-Sustain Technology™ (SST) unleashes the full potential of MIMO to significantly enhance signal reliability and throughput at range. This is achieved through the world’s first single-chip, triple-radio RF design. The AR5008 delivers up to 300 megabits-per-second (Mbps) physical data rate with real end-user throughput of 150 to 180 Mbps, and achieves, on average, 50 percent greater sustained throughput at range than 2x2 MIMO systems.

Atheros ROCm™ Radio-on-Chip for mobile
Atheros’ innovative ROCm™ WLAN products provide the lowest power and highest throughput solutions for CE products. ROCm products are the first single-chip 802.11g and 802.11a/g technology optimized for mobile, handheld applications.

Super G® and Super AG®
Atheros Super G® and Super AG® enhanced technologies offer the highest actual throughput—1.5 to 2 times faster than standard 802.11g or 802.11a/g products in the wireless LAN market today--they are ideal for any application requiring high-speed transmission.  Please visit www.super-g.com for more information on Super G and Super AG capabilities.

Atheros XR® (eXtended Range) Technology
Atheros XR® provides single access point coverage in home networking environments, eliminates the dead spots in corporate wireless LANs, and provides outdoor coverage of up to two times the distance of competing WLAN solutions.

AR5006 Chipset Highlights

Atheros 6th generation AR5006X and offers the world’s first complete single-chip IEEE 802.11a/b/g WLAN solution, the Atheros AR5006X. The chip integrates an entire 802.11a/b/g solution -- Media Access Controller (MAC), baseband processor, and a high-performance radio with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz capabilities -- in a low-cost digital CMOS design. Offering seamless connectivity to all Wi-Fi networks anywhere in the world, full support for the IEEE 802.11i security standard, and support for Atheros XR™ (eXtended Range) and Super AG® performance enhancements, the AR5006X is ideal for PC OEM, enterprise, retail, and consumer electronics devices.

AR5005 Chipset Highlights

Atheros fifth generation AR5005UG and AR5005UX feature a completely integrated universal serial bus (USB) 2.0 interface. Using these new chipsets, WLAN equipment manufacturers can deliver high-performance 802.11g and 802.11a/g wireless connectivity with Atheros’ Super G and Super AG® adaptive bandwidth technology to any device with a USB port.  Also included in the fifth generation series of products are the AR5005G which is the world's first complete single-chip IEEE 802.11g WLAN solution.  AR5005G brings an unprecedented level of integration, performance, power savings and cost reduction to the rapidly growing 802.11g market.  The solution is well suited for a wide range of retail, business and consumer electronics products including PC cards, access points and home gateways, small form-factor PCs, handheld data communications products, and VoIP handsets. The Atheros AR5005G chipset  is also available with Atheros’ standard-plus Super G® technology feature.

AR5004 Chipset Highlights

The fourth generation AR5004G chipset supports 802.11b and 802.11g in the 2-GHz band from 2.300 to 2.500 GHz.  The AR5004X adds support for 802.11a in the 5-GHz band from 4.900 to 5.850 GHz, thus enabling tri-mode or universal WLAN products. The AR5004X meets international requirements for WLAN operation based on the draft 802.11h and 802.11j standards. The only products to have CE marking for 5.470 GHz European operation and TELEC certification for 4.900/5.030 GHz Japan operation are based on Atheros chipsets. Both chipsets include support for emerging security standards such as Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and draft 802.11i Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with no performance reduction, and draft 802.11e Quality of Service enhancements. A single driver and firmware code base supports all Atheros chipsets, and provides both backward and forward compatibility with Atheros’ previous and next-generation multi-standard designs.