SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 26, 2001--Atheros Communications today announced the establishment of a Japanese subsidiary, Atheros Communications, KK, naming Dr. Tomoki Ohsawa as General Manager. Dr. Ohsawa is the former Manager of the Radio Technologies Development Division at NEC Corporation and the former Chair of the Ethernet Wireless Access Working Group of the MMAC in Japan.

Dr. Ohsawa will oversee Atheros' overall business operations in Japan, including sales, customer engineering, strategic development, operations and marketing, as the company brings its groundbreaking wireless networking technology to this market.

Founded in 1998, Atheros is dedicated to driving transparent connectivity between all computing, communication, video and audio devices in the office, in the home, and in public places. Announced last September, its fast, highly-integrated Atheros AR5000 chipset incorporates a complete "radio-on-a-chip" (RoC) and represents a significant breakthrough over existing far slower, more complex and more expensive products. The AR5000 is the world's first two-chip, all-CMOS end-to-end solution for IEEE 802.11a, 5-GHz wireless LANs. The AR5000 chipset supports the IEEE 802.11a maximum data rate of 54 Mbps, and also provides speeds up to 72 Mbps in Atheros' "turbo" mode.

"Tomoki is one of Japan's foremost authorities in wireless LAN technology," said Rich Redelfs, president and CEO of Atheros. "His leadership in industry standards development and deployment, as well as his deep experience as both an engineer and a manager in wireless technology, will be invaluable to Atheros as we grow our business in Japan."

One of Dr. Ohsawa's accomplishments was his successful chairmanship of the Ethernet Wireless Access Working Group of Multimedia Mobile Access Communications Promotion Council (MMAC-PC). This group was instrumental in choosing the IEEE 802.11a wireless LAN standard for the Japanese market. Dr. Ohsawa had been with NEC since 1983, holding senior level management positions in the company's Network Research Lab, Computer and Communications Network Product Development Lab, Wireless Communication Division, and Radio Technologies Development Division. Dr. Ohsawa holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Nihon University. He has 122 patents issued and 47 pending, as well as written over 100 papers and numerous magazine articles on wireless LAN technology.

"Wireless LAN deployment in Asia is a huge market that includes both the office and the home," said Dr. Ohsawa. "Atheros KK will play an important role in introducing IEEE 802.11a technology to Japan and the rest of Asia, where wireless solutions like i-mode and cellular phones have been very popular."

Atheros Communications KK is located at:
4th floor, NTB - M building,  2-2-9 Shinbashi, Minato-ku,
Tokyo, Japan 105-0004

About Atheros Communications, Inc.

Atheros Communications was founded in May 1998 by leading experts in radio and signal processing from Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and private industry. The company's founding mission is to provide wireless networking technologies that drive transparent connections between all computing, communications, audio and video devices in the office and the home. Funded by venture capital firms August Capital, Foundation Capital and New Enterprise Associates, Atheros currently employs over 110 people and has filed more than 35 wireless technology patents.

For press and analyst inquiries contact: Cheryl Patstone, 408-773-5344, cheryl@atheros.com or Greg Wood, A&R Partners, 650-762-2838, gwood@arpartners.com.