Atheros also announced two new strategic directions, which include support for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) as the preferred modulation for wireless LANs at all frequencies, and a comprehensive security strategy centered on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

OFDM Everywhere™: The Future of Wireless LANs

Atheros believes strongly in the superiority of OFDM and therefore has made it the basis of its product-development strategy-"OFDM Everywhere." The IEEE has endorsed the broad adoption of OFDM for wireless LANs because of the higher speeds that result from its efficient use of spectrum and because of its resistance to multipath and other types of interference. OFDM has become the technology of choice in many communications markets including digital cable, DSL, digital TV, power-line networking, and wireless LANs.

"Today's announcements demonstrate our strategic commitment to extend the benefits of OFDM to all available unlicensed spectrums," said Rich Redelfs, president and chief executive officer of Atheros. "Only OFDM has the effect of maximizing overall system capacity, thus allowing for the future growth of network traffic."

More Channels and Higher Systems Capacity

The combination of OFDM performance and broad spectrum support improves network scalability, which is crucial in enterprise or university campuses, large public "hot-spots," multi-tenant offices, and apartments. A broad spectrum increases the number of available channels, thereby reducing or eliminating co-channel interference caused by the reuse of channels. In large wireless LAN deployments, when channels are reused in close proximity, co-channel interference results in immediate performance degradation.

The new Atheros chipsets support up to 16 separate channels of 54 Mbps connectivity in the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz unlicensed frequencies available in North America and Asia. Up to 22 separate channels are supported in the European countries where additional spectrum is available.

By way of contrast, networks operating only on the 802.11b standard are limited to three separate channels of 11 Mbps, or a total of 33 Mbps, before incurring dramatically reduced performance as a result of co-channel interference. The new Atheros offerings support up to 864 Mbps of network system capacity in the U.S. before reusing a channel, or more than 1 Gbps of wireless connectivity in parts of Europe.

Enterprise-Class Security

Atheros also announced its strategy to deliver the industry's most secure and high performance wireless LAN solutions. The new Atheros chipsets feature a comprehensive security solution covering four key areas-AES encryption, 802.1x authentication, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), and Virtual LANs (VLANs).

The company is the first to support AES, the state-of-the-art encryption technology selected by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology to replace 3DES (Triple Data Encryption Standard), the technology currently used for banking and other high security applications. AES is universally considered the best commercially available encryption and integrity-checking technology, and is part of the developing 802.11i specification.

Most current security implementations run their encryption in firmware, thereby dramatically slowing the performance and throughput of the system. All new Atheros chipsets include the hardware acceleration necessary to execute AES at up to 108 Mbps without performance degradation. The new Atheros offerings also support Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) and Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) for legacy systems that do not support AES.

For authentication, Atheros uses 802.1x to verify that clients have the credentials to be on the network. 802.1x centralizes network authorization, dynamic key management, and user administration to enhance the security and interoperability of wireless LANs.

VPN and VLAN features enable end-to-end security through the use of tunneling protocols and certificate authorities while separating different classes of traffic over the same physical wireless network. In a large enterprise, for example, a single wireless network would be able to have one virtual network for employees and another virtual network for visitors. An airport might use this feature to have a secure virtual network for employees managing flight operations and a separate open network for travelers wishing to connect to the Internet.

A New Family of Unprecedented WLAN Solutions

Atheros has introduced three new chipsets, with associated reference designs and software. These unprecedented solutions extend the company's leadership in CMOS radio integration, and clearly establish Atheros as the leading provider of the industry's most flexible and high-performing WLAN solutions over the broadest range of the unlicensed spectrum. Each chipset supports the developing extensions to the IEEE 802.11 standard, including 802.11i Enhanced Security, 802.11e Quality of Service (QoS), and 802.11h Spectrum Management for European regulatory requirements. The new chipsets are:

• Combo 802.11a/g/b Wireless LAN Chipset (AR5001X)- The three-chip CMOS solution is the first to support all of the IEEE 802.11 family of standards: the 5-GHz 802.11a standard, the legacy 2.4-GHz 802.11b standard, and the OFDM enhancement for 2.4 GHz in the draft 802.11g standard.
  
• Second-Generation 802.11a Chipset (AR5001A)- A two-chip solution that continues the heritage of Atheros' original award-winning AR5000 chipset but is enhanced to include support for advanced security, international features, increased network system capacity, higher integration to reduce costs, and even better performance than before.
  
• Integrated Enterprise-Quality Access Point Chipset (AR5001AP)- A two-chip 802.11a access point solution that is the most highly integrated solution ever offered for WLAN access points at any frequency. Features include a high-performance MIPS processor, complete 802.11a solution, multiple 10/100 Ethernet MACs, and multiple UARTs to simplify Bluetooth® or other integration.

For details on the chipsets and their implementations, please see the three associated news releases on the 802.11a/g/b combo solution, the second-generation 802.11a solution, and the integrated access point solution.

About Atheros Communications, Inc.

Atheros Communications is the leading developer of networking technologies for secure, high-performance wireless local area networks. As the industry innovator and market-share leader in wireless OFDM technology compliant with the IEEE 802.11 specifications, Atheros is driving transparent connections among electronic devices in the office, home and on the road. Atheros technology is being used by many of the world's leading wireless equipment manufacturers including Accton, Actiontec, ALPS Electric, Intel, Intermec, Netgear, Proxim, SMC Networks, Sony, TDK, UltraDevices and others. For more information, visit www.atheros.com or send email to info@atheros.com.

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.