Atheros Ships 100-Millionth Ethernet Chip

Momentum Behind ETHOS Solutions Providing Industry’s Lowest Power, Smallest Designs to PC, Networking and CE Markets

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Atheros Communications, Inc., a global leader in innovative technologies for wireless and wired communications, today announced it has shipped more than 100 million of its ETHOS™ Ethernet chips. Since entering the Ethernet market in late 2006, Atheros has leveraged its strong mixed-signal and DSP design expertise to deliver Ethernet solutions focused on power efficiency, carrier-grade performance and market-leading integration. This product focus has resulted in significant growth and leadership demonstrated by Atheros’ Gigabit and Fast Ethernet designs with eight of the top ten PC manufacturers, five of the top five home networking equipment manufacturers, and numerous tier-one carriers.

With its commitment to delivering the industry’s lowest power Ethernet solutions, Atheros most recently announced the AR8151 and AR8152, expressly designed to reduce overall system energy consumption. The Atheros AR8151 has the distinction of being the industry’s smallest and greenest Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) controller and is among the first to comply with the latest IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet draft specification.

Atheros Ethernet technology employs advanced techniques including the ETHOS Cable Diagnostic which reduces power consumption based on actual Ethernet cable length and Automatic Power Savings (APS) to extend a device’s sleep mode. These green features provide substantial energy efficiencies to extend battery life in PCs and enable customer networking products with ETHOS switches to meet the stringent power requirements of the European Code of Conduct (CoC) on Energy Efficiency. As a result, the Atheros AR8316 and AR8236 solutions are the most energy-efficient Gigabit and Fast Ethernet switches shipping today.

“Achieving the 100 million Ethernet chip milestone is impressive given Atheros’ relatively recent entry in this market,” said Joseph Byrne, senior analyst of The Linley Group and lead author of the firm’s report, Communications Semiconductor Market Share. “Atheros is now a key supplier of Ethernet technology, having won over many tier one customers across the key consumer market segments.”

“Over the past three years, we have built the ETHOS portfolio to serve our customers’ growing need for higher performance and lower power Ethernet,” said George Chu, vice president and general manager of the company’s Ethernet Business Unit. “Our ETHOS technology is meeting these needs not only in PCs, wireless APs, VoIP phones, IP cameras and carrier equipment, but also in the expanding CE category of networked TVs, Blu-ray players, DVRs and gaming consoles, and computing accessories like printers. Atheros is committed to delivering increasingly more advanced solutions with features such as enhanced power-efficiency, quality of service (QoS) and security to meet growing consumer demand for Internet-enabled devices in the digital home.”