Date: 26/10/2010

Atheros launch new Ethernet chips while reporting record quarterly revenue

Atheros Communications, has announced that its popular ETHOS portfolio of Ethernet semiconductor devices with the industry's lowest power physical layer transceivers (PHYs) and switches for networking, computing, consumer electronics (CE) and carrier applications. Atheros claim by supporting the newly ratified IEEE802.3az-2010 Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) standard, Atheros' latest chips reduce their power consumption by up to 80 percent.

ETHOS switches and PHYs are suggested for PCs, networking products (such as broadband gateways, Wi-Fi routers and printers), consumer media devices (including TVs, set top boxes and Blu-ray Disc players) and carrier access equipment (such as gateways, passive optical networking (PON) products and cellular base stations).

This family comply with the newly ratified IEEE 802.3az-2010 standard, a major advancement that makes Ethernet networks up to 80 percent more power efficient. ETHOS PHYs and switches also employ legacy MAC devices, Wake on LAN to save power further.
Atheros says its PHYs and switches are among the smallest and most cost-effective solutions available. The highly integrated packages also provide a 40 percent smaller footprint and a lower pin-count than competitive solutions, claims Atheros.

Other key features of AR8031 and AR8033 GbE PHYs:
Two PHYs can be used interchangeably in a single PCB design.
The AR8031 and AR8033 GbE PHYs features Synchronous Ethernet (Sync-E) - a cost-effective clock distribution feature, Precision Timing Protocol (IEEE 1588v2) - quickly synchronizes networked clocks, and Copper/Fiber Dual-Mode to provide services over copper and optical links.

Other key features of New ETHOS 7-Port Gigabit Switches:
The AR8327/AR8328 family of Gigabit Switches available in different processor configurations with key options such as:
Network Address Translation (NAT) - By offloading address translation from the processor, Flexible VLAN translation and 1:1 & N:1 VLAN mapping to support advanced services defined by the Broadband Forum and Metro Ethernet Forum
Available in 20mmx20mm QFP or 12mmx12mm QFN packages.

George Chu, vice president and general manager of Atheros' Ethernet Business Unit
"Atheros continues to lead the Ethernet market by delivering the most energy efficient solutions with the advanced features that matter to our customers. At every step in the design process, the ETHOS engineering team pushes the limits of power consumption while optimizing the performance of our solutions, which provides significant benefits for consumer electronics, networking and carrier equipment."

Availability: Sampling now, volume production expected in the first quarter of 2011.

Atheros is demonstrating its latest ETHOS solutions at Broadband World Forum Europe, October 26-29 in Paris, France.

Atheros Communications has also announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2010. Revenue in the third quarter of 2010 was a record $247.1 million, up 4 percent compared to $238.2 million reported in the second quarter of 2010. Third quarter 2010 revenue increased 58 percent compared to $156.6 million reported in the third quarter of 2009.

"While we continue to see weakness in certain channels, increasing demand for Atheros' ROCm low-power mobile connectivity solutions in a growing number of consumer electronics products fueled our record revenue in the third quarter," said Craig Barratt, president and chief executive officer of Atheros Communications. "Additionally, with our recently completed acquisition of Opulan, we further strengthened our networking product line, enabling us to address an even larger portion of the rapidly expanding global networking market."

In another release Atheros Communications has announced that its XSPAN 802.11 solutions with Direct Connect technology are among the first to be Wi-Fi CERTIFIED for Wi-Fi Direct
Atheros says the Wi-Fi Alliance has also chosen Atheros' popular dual-band 802.11n PCIe solution with Direct Connect for the Wi-Fi Direct test environment, which is used to certify the interoperability of other products.

Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi Alliance said "We congratulate Atheros on achieving selection to the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct test bed. Atheros' participation in the development of this program has been instrumental in the achievement of an industry-wide certification for this revolutionary new Wi-Fi technology."