PHY chip cuts size and cost of gigabit networking

Billed as the industry's smallest, most cost competitive, single-port Gigabit Ethernet PHY, the AR8021 will accelerate the adoption of GbE technology.

Atheros Communications has launched the industry's smallest, most cost competitive, single-port Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) PHY, the AR8021.

Atheros is bringing the company's unmatched analogue and mixed signal design expertise to its second-generation GbE PHY to achieve significant technical advantages.

The AR8021 is the world's smallest GbE PHY device - offering a reduction of more than 60% in package size compared with the nearest competitive solution.

This industry-leading GbE PHY footprint results in the lowest bill-of-materials (BOM) cost on the market, reducing price barriers to widespread adoption of GbE PHY technology in a wide range of computing and networking applications.

This latest addition to Atheros' growing Ethernet portfolio, the AR8021 GbE PHY, serves a growing number of devices that benefit from gigabit throughput including notebook and desktop PCs, wired and wireless routers, gateways, set-top boxes, printers, gaming platforms and network storage devices.

These are markets in which Atheros is already strongly positioned with its industry-leading wireless LAN (WLAN) and Bluetooth solutions.

The GbE performance effectively breaks the networking bottleneck caused by the increasing bandwidth requirements associated with converged triple-play applications - data, voice, and video - throughout home and business environments.

The benefits of GbE networking are so evident that the number of PC platforms using GbE technology now outnumbers those based on Fast Ethernet.

The small and medium sized business (SMB) networking market is also dominated by GbE technology, with a wide array of GbE-enabled solutions.

"No other GbE PHY on the market can compare to the AR8021's size and cost", said Tony Hsu, Director of Product Marketing for Atheros.

"With its unique advantages, Atheros' latest GbE PHY will be the clear choice of any PC, router, gaming device or consumer electronics manufacturer that can benefit by upgrading its end products with GbE performance".

The AR8021 offers the industry's smallest GbE footprint - more than 60% smaller in package size compared with the nearest competitive solution - in a 6 x 6mm, 48-pin, QFN package.

The AR8021 GbE PHY is optimised for low power operation and consumes less than 650mW.

The design also features low power modes that leverage internal DSP power-saving schemes.

The AR8021 GbE PHY is compliant with IEEE802.3 specifications.

The device features a 10/100/1000Mbit/s triple-speed transceiver with an RGMII interface.

The AR8021's digital signal processing (DSP) architecture delivers robust performance with excellent tolerance to NEXT, FEXT, echo and other environmental and electronic noise.

Atheros' easy-to-use Cable Diagnostic Test allows IT staff and service providers to easily check the health of the network cable connections for any open or short fault locations.

The AR8021 will begin sampling in late May to key customers.

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