Atheros announces new portfolio for mobile devices
Atheros last week announced three solutions designed to improve Wi-Fi connectivity capability in myriad mobile devices, from smartphones to netbooks and tablets.
Currently, the Atheros AR6003 is the industry’s smallest and highest-throughput solution, but the company plans to take its Wi-Fi performance metric to the next level with three products unveiled during last week’s World Mobile Congress, according to Tim Peters, senior director of mobile communications at Atheros.
Peters said the AR6004 will be the industry’s first two-stream, dual-band 802.11n for mobile devices, enabling significantly improved data throughputs.
“The AR6003 — a product we announced in 2009 — is currently the industry’s smallest mobile 11n solution and also features the industry’s fastest throughput at about 85 Mbps,” Peters said. “With this AR6004, we’re able to more than double the throughput on these devices by offering two-stream technology.”
While doubling the throughput of the AR6003, the AR6004 uses only 15% more electrical current when operating at its highest speed and 10% less than the AR6003 when transmitting at 85 Mbps, Peters said. Products featuring the AR6004 are expected to be in production during the first quarter of next year, he said.
To address size and cost issues, Atheros has developed the AR6005, which is the smallest 802.11n solution at a size of 12 square millimeters, less than half the size of the AR6003 at a lower cost while still supporting data maximum throughput rates of 85 Mbps Peters said.
“We believe the 6005 is really going to enable Wi-Fi to become a check box in these high-end feature phones, which is going to push down further into the lower end of the phones, which is where the larger volume is,” he said. “The idea here is that, if we can make Wi-Fi easy to use and extremely low-cost and robust, then we’ll find Wi-Fi connection into all of these devices.”
In addition, Atheros announced the AR9462, a connectivity solution targeted to serve the high-end computing needs of netbook and tablet users, Peters said. The AR9462 will provide the 170 Mbps performance metrics of the AR6004 and combine them with the low-energy connectivity capabilities of Bluetooth 4.0.
“This is the world’s first monolithic, two-stream 11n device that also features Bluetooth 4.0,” Peters said. “The idea here is that we’re really focusing on the performance of the notebook, netbook and tablet space.”
For more information on mobile data, attend these sessions at IWCE in Las Vegas, March 7-11, 2011.
