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Atheros ROCm® Platform
Radio-On-Chip for Mobile (ROCm) Products

The AR6000 family consists of WLAN solutions based on the Atheros
ROCm platform for high-performance mobile and embedded wireless
products. The Atheros ROCm platform gives customers unsurpassed
ability to:

• Build the most power efficient devices
• Design for smallest form factor applications
• Achieve the most cost effective designs
       - Greater integration of functionality
       - Low-cost chip solution
• Deliver Atheros-class performance in a wide array of mobile devices

AR6001GL Technology Overview
The AR6001GL allows direct connection to cellular baseband and application processors via SDIO, SPI, and memory-mapped parallel interfaces. Its on-board processing and storage capabilities allow it to be integrated with the host platform with minimal development upfront and minimal loading during runtime. With its high degree of on-chip integration, it requires minimal external circuitry, and the entire solution, including front-end module, is designed to occupy minimal PCB area.

Sophisticated system-level features include fast sleep/wake context switching for energy-efficient VoIP,  adaptive radio biasing for low-power operation, and spur cancellation and radio co-existence features for cellular/ Bluetooth® /802.11 interference mitigation.  The AR6001GL is designed from the ground up to be a robust, space and energy-efficient 802.11 solution to bring true broadband access capability to a range of mobile devices.

AR6001GL Chip Features

• SDIO 1.1, SPI, UART, local bus parallel memory-mapped interfaces
• Integrated RISC processor
• External serial and parallel memory interfaces
• Integrated MAC/baseband processor and radio
• On-chip low-dropout linear regulator
• Fractional-N synthesizer for radio agility and external reference
  frequency scaling
• WEP, TKIP, and AES engines for line-speed encryption support
• Advanced Quality of Service
• Digital audio I²S output for wireless speaker support
• Embedded low power FLASH

Solution Features

• Leading Edge APSD support for energy-efficient VoIP
  (sleep between voice packets)
• Fast channel scanning and changing for handset-assisted handover
• Adaptive radio biasing for low-power or high-performance modes
• In-band spur cancellation algorithms for interference immunity
• Bluetooth® co-existence interface for time-shared transmission
• Jumpstart for Wireless™ secure configuration tool
• Supports Cisco Compatible Extensions version 4.0

Summary of Benefits

• Universal client 802.11b/g capability for mobile
  and embedded devices
• Low power consumption with adaptive radio biasing
  for sustained power savings
• Self-contained, modular design for minimal host loading
• High integration level for compact and low-cost designs
• System-level enhancements for energy-efficient VoIP,
  interference immunity, and Bluetooth® co-existence

AR6001GL Reference Design - SD13 The AR6001GL integrates the RF transceiver, baseband, MAC, central processing and peripheral control functions. A separate RF front-end module integrates the power amplifier, low-noise amplifier, and transmit/receive switch. For the BGA package, the total solution area is less than 150 mm2.  The height of all solutions is less than 1.4 mm.