SUNNYVALE, Calif., September 18, 2000 - Atheros Communications today announced a new chipset based on its fundamental rearchitecture
of the radio to offer standards-based, high-speed, low-cost wireless local area network (LAN) connections within offices and homes.
The fast, low-powered Atheros™ AR5000 chipset delivers true "radio-on-a-chip" (RoC) capabilities and represents a breakthrough over
existing wireless chipset technologies that offer lower performance and are far more complex and expensive. The highly integrated Atheros
technology provides the first two-chip, all-CMOS end-to-end solution (eliminating the expense of a separate power amplifier, SAW filter, or
MAC) for next-generation 5-GHz wireless LANs.
Operating at speeds up to 72 Mbps, the Atheros AR5000 chipset is priced below today's less-capable 11 Mbps chipsets that sell in volume for
$35 or more. The introduction of the Atheros AR5000 product enables ubiquitous, economical connections in the office and home between
devices like personal computers, printers and "Access Points"--which are gateways for connecting wireless users to a wired infrastructure
such as a corporate backbone, or a DSL or cable modem in the home. The AR5000 solution will also afford economical placement of these Access
Points in airports and hotels, providing travelers with high-speed connections to the Internet.
In the future, customers will leverage Atheros' breakthrough RoC technology to offer scalable, transparent connections for all information
and entertainment appliances including modems, set-top boxes, satellite dishes, remote controls, telephones, televisions, PCs, CD players,
VCRs, DVD players and other devices, which today are largely unable to communicate or work with each other.
The Atheros AR5000 chipset, operating at up to 54 Mbps, is compliant with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) new
802.11a 5-GHz wireless LAN standard- representing a five times improvement in data rates over the 2.4-GHz standard currently shipping. The
chipset also includes an enhanced "turbo mode" that supports speeds up to 72 Mbps and extended ranges.
"Our RoC solution enables the creation of powerful and flexible voice and data wireless networks at unprecedented price-points," said Rich
Redelfs, president and CEO of the two-year-old Atheros. "It cuts through the Gordian Knot of twisted-pair wiring, enabling the wireless LAN to
take its rightful place in the office and home as the preferred connectivity solution."
"Atheros has stepped back and fundamentally rearchitected radio design," explained Dr. John Hennessy, board chair of Atheros, a pioneer in the
development of RISC chip technology, and the recently named president of Stanford University. "When Professor Teresa Meng came to me with her
concept for a simple and fast radio architecture in 1998, it was clear that it could impact radio technology in the same way that simple and
fast RISC technology redefined microprocessing." This meeting led to the creation of Atheros, and the beginning of the productization of a new
concept in radio/wireless technology.
Atheros' technology breakthrough enables the shrinking of what were three- and four-chip 11 Mbps solutions into a higher-speed two-chip set
that can fit on a single side of a credit-card-sized PC Card. This technology helps cut materials and manufacturing costs drastically. By
"starting with a clean sheet of paper," Atheros has been able to take a fundamentally fresh look at the way radio frequency (RF) components
work with each other. This systems approach has enabled Atheros to implement a series of innovations such as the integration of the power
amplifier, and the elimination of SAW filters and other components that conventional RF wisdom suggested needed to be separate. The end result
is a highly integrated chip architecture designed for low-cost, standard-process CMOS fabrication.
Existing wireless LAN chipsets require such exotic and expensive materials as gallium arsenide (GaAs) or silicon germanium (SiGe), and use
approximately six times the energy of the Atheros solution. Because GaAs and SiGe are niche chip technologies, their fabrication costs are much
higher than standard-process CMOS. In addition, Atheros' energy-saving RoC solution enables battery-powered devices, such as laptop computers,
to communicate at even higher-speeds without draining their batteries. With CMOS-the technology used to manufacture about 95 percent of all
chips today-Atheros has been able to reduce power, leverage manufacturing economies, and ride the curve of future cost reductions as predicted
by Moore's Law.
Atheros' AR5000 chipset is produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's largest semiconductor foundry. "We are happy to
produce the AR5000 chipset on our standard CMOS logic process and expand our service to the exciting wireless communications space," said Ed
Ross, president of TSMC North America.
The Atheros AR5000 chipset is priced under $35 in 100,000-unit volumes. It will be available in volume in the second quarter of next year, with
samples available sooner. Atheros will be publicly demonstrating the AR5000 chipset for the first time in booth #3544 at the Networld+Interop
tradeshow in Atlanta the week of September 25th.
Atheros Communications was founded in May 1998 by leading experts in RF and signal processing from Stanford University, the University of California
at Berkeley, and private industry. Its founding mission is to provide wireless networking technologies that drive transparent connections among all
computing, 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 75 people and has filed more than 20 wireless technology patents.
Thomas Mahon, 925.937.4921, tmahon@ncal.verio.com or
or Nicole E. Martin, 415.346.5656, nicole@atheros.com.
About Atheros Communications, Inc.
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