Atheros Company Overview and Products

Atheros was a leading provider of semiconductor solutions for wireless and wired connectivity, networking, and consumer electronics.

The company was founded in 1998 and was acquired by Qualcomm in 2011.

Atheros' products included wireless LAN, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi solutions, as well as Ethernet and powerline networking chips.

These products were used in a wide range of applications, including laptops, smartphones, tablets, and smart home devices.

Atheros' technology enabled fast and reliable wireless connectivity, making it a key player in the development of modern wireless networks.

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In 2011, Qualcomm acquired Atheros for $3.7 billion, making it a subsidiary under the name Qualcomm Atheros.

The acquisition allowed Qualcomm Atheros to unveil the WCN3660 Combo Chip, which integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM into Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile processors.

Qualcomm Atheros launched the Skifta media shifting application for Android and released the first HomePlug Green PHY at the end of 2011.

This marked a significant step in wireless connectivity, enabling users to easily stream media across devices.

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In 2012, Qualcomm Atheros announced a Wi-Fi display product at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012, along with a new chip for HomePlug AV power line networking.

The new chip brought faster and more reliable connectivity to homes and businesses.

Qualcomm Atheros demonstrated a suite of 802.11ac enabled products at Mobile World Congress 2012, including the WCN3680, a mobile 802.11ac combo chip targeting smartphones and tablets.

This move marked a significant shift towards faster and more reliable wireless connectivity.

In 2015, Qualcomm Atheros released the QCA9531 system-on chip (SoC), which is an 802.11n 2x2 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi SoC for WLAN platforms, with CPU clock speed up to 650 MHz, supporting DDR2 or DDR1 memory.

This chip brought improved performance and efficiency to wireless networks.

Qualcomm Atheros' 802.11ac chips were designed to give devices a boost in bandwidth, making it possible to stream HD content without lag or buffering.

This was a significant development in the world of wireless connectivity.

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Atheros offers a range of products and technologies that enable wireless connectivity and networking solutions.

Their WLAN products include the Align 1-stream 802.11n chips, which support WLAN for mobile with up to 150 Mbit/s PHY rates for smartphones and portable consumer electronics.

The company also offers legacy WLAN designs for 802.11a/g, ensuring compatibility with older devices.

Atheros' Power line communication (PLC) technology is a member of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance and supports the IEEE 1901 standard.

Their Ethernet products include the ETHOS line of Ethernet interfaces and the low-energy EDGE line, which supports the IEEE 802.3az-2010 Energy Efficient standard.

Hy-Fi, Atheros' hybrid networking technology, integrates WLAN, PLC, and Ethernet technologies, complying with the IEEE 1905.1 standard.

Here are some of the key products and technologies offered by Atheros:

Atheros' PON technologies incorporate standards such as IEEE 802.3ah, multiple-channel, software-based, digital signal processing for the G.711 and G.729 ITU standards for VoIP, and TR-156 Broadband Forum PON standard.

Atheros has a strong commitment to open-source software support. Their devices on Linux and FreeBSD once relied on the hobbyist project MadWifi, originally created by Sam Leffler.

MadWifi later evolved into ath5k, a significant improvement in wireless support. In July 2008, Atheros released an open-source Linux driver called ath9k for their 802.11n devices.

The ath9k driver has been actively contributed to by Atheros, making it a prime candidate for experiments around improving Wi-Fi. It is the first subject of a FQ-CoDel-based radio fairness improvement experiment by Make-Wifi-Fast.

Atheros has also provided documentation and assistance to the FreeBSD community to enable updated support for 802.11n chipsets in FreeBSD-9.0 and up. This shows their dedication to supporting open-source communities.

The flexibility and openness of ath9k make it a popular choice for radio hobbyists, who have modified the driver to broadcast in licensed frequency bands.

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