Atheros Receives Two Leadership Awards from Fabless Semiconductor Association

FSA Recognizes Atheros as the Most Respected Emerging Public Fabless Company and Favorite Fabless Pick

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 11, 2006 — Atheros Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHR), a leading developer of advanced wireless solutions, has been awarded two prestigious awards by the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA). Atheros was named Most Respected Emerging Public Fabless Company for its products, vision and future opportunities. The company was also named Favorite Fabless Pick by Morgan Stanley’s financial analysts who select their favorite fabless company based on historical, as well as projected data, such as stock price, earnings per share, revenue forecasts and product performance. Atheros was presented the awards at the FSA’s 2006 Awards Dinner Celebration on Dec. 7 in Santa Clara, making it the fifth time in the last six years that Atheros has been recognized by the FSA.

“Atheros is honored to receive these two prestigious FSA industry awards on behalf of our employees” said Craig Barratt, president and chief executive officer of Atheros. “We’ve had extraordinary success this year in the highly competitive wireless market ─ bringing innovative products to market, executing on our diversification strategy and demonstrating strong financial growth. These achievements have been made possible by our talented and dedicated employees and our world-class customers, partners and suppliers.”

“The industry has selected Atheros as the winner of the inaugural Most Respected Emerging Public Fabless Company Award, which recognizes a company with annual sales between $100 and $499 million,” stated Jodi Shelton, co-founder and executive director of FSA. “In addition, Atheros has also been designated as the Favorite Fabless Pick by industry analyst Mark Edelstone of Morgan Stanley. Achieving both of these honors is testament to Atheros’ growth and industry reputation, and we are pleased to highlight the company’s successes at this year’s celebration.”

Atheros completed its initial public offering in February 2004 and as of the third quarter 2006 has delivered six consecutive quarters of revenue growth. Several developments and product introductions are contributing to the company’s continued success, including its high performance draft 802.11n-based XSPAN® solutions, the Radio-on-Chip (ROCm®) based mobile/embedded solutions for consumer electronics and handheld products and the PHS/PAS cellular solutions for leading handsets in China. With the introduction of Atheros’ first cost-optimized wireless network processors, the AR7100 family, and the recently announced acquisition of Attansic, which adds Gigabit Ethernet to Atheros’ portfolio, the company is poised to capture approximately 90 percent of the silicon value in high-performance routing products with the world’s most competitive suite of wireless and wireline local area networking products.

About Atheros Communications, Inc.

Atheros Communications is a leading developer of semiconductor system solutions for wireless communications products. Atheros combines its wireless systems expertise with high-performance radio frequency (RF), mixed signal and digital semiconductor design skills to provide highly integrated chipsets that are manufacturable on low-cost, standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processes. Atheros technology is being used by a broad base of leading customers, including personal computer, networking equipment and handset manufacturers. For more information, visit www.atheros.com or send email to info@atheros.com.

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Atheros, the Atheros logo, XSPAN and ROCm are trademarks of Atheros Communications, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the sole property of their respective owners.

NOTE ON FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release, including statements regarding the features, performance, competitiveness and benefits of Atheros' products, whether Atheros will close the acquisition of Attansic, and how much of the silicon value is captured by Atheros in its customers’ products are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to, difficulties in development and manufacture of new products and upgraded products, unforeseen problems in the performance of the products upon broad deployment, and other risks detailed in Atheros' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2005, and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2006 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in other reports filed with the SEC by Atheros from time to time. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. Atheros disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.