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networkZONE Products for the week of November 12, 2007
Atheros Communications Says…
Power Barrier Broken with New Wi-Fi Solution for Mobile Devices
AR6002 ROCm chip consumes 70% less power in active mode than competitive solutions and near-zero power in standby
Atheros Communications, Inc. has announced the Atheros ROCm single-chip AR6002 family which features breakthrough low-power for mobile WLAN solutions. The game-changing power efficiency delivered by the AR6002 draws near-zero standby power and has nominal impact on battery life even in active mode, both key considerations in the design of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile products. With its exceptionally low-power designs for mobile and Atheros' leading performance in Wi-Fi throughput and connection reliability, the company intends to catalyze the adoption of Wi-Fi in the handheld and mobile device markets.
The World's Lowest-Power Mobile WLAN Solution Based on consistently repeated, actual power demonstration measurements, the Atheros AR6002 consumes 70 percent less power than competitive solutions on the market in active mode while downloading content. This substantial power reduction results in longer battery life, enabling significantly more downloads and longer talk time between mobile device charges. For example, the AR6002 solution will take more than 100 hours to deplete a standard 3.7V, 800mAh phone battery in continual VoIP mode. In another application using the AR6002, 200 gigabytes of data can be downloaded before depleting the same battery.
In addition, the AR6002 significantly extends battery life by drawing virtually zero power in standby, relieving users from having to switch the Wi-Fi function on and off. As a result of its substantial power advances, Atheros' newest ROCm Wi-Fi family generates near-zero battery impact in power-sensitive mobile devices.
This performance achievement effectively eliminates the power consumption challenge facing mobile designers when determining whether to include Wi-Fi in devices like smartphones, personal media players, digital still cameras, gaming and other portable consumer devices.
"Atheros has broken the power barrier for mobile WLAN," said Sam Endy, vice president and general manager of the mobile wireless business unit for Atheros. "No other solutions on the market today can touch this new power standard for mobile Wi-Fi. We have architected our new ROCm WLAN family to eliminate the biggest challenge previously associated with integrating Wi-Fi into mobile devices."
Atheros' expert design of the AR6002 minimizes power consumption through a combination of advanced hardware and software power-saving protocols and techniques.
In addition, the AR6002 extends battery-life with its industry-leading throughput which reduces the amount of time the WLAN chip must be in active mode.
"I've seen Atheros' new mobile Wi-Fi technology in action and was impressed by its extraordinarily low power consumption," said Will Strauss, president and principal analyst of Forward Concepts. "With its near-zero impact on battery life, the AR6002 should transform Wi-Fi from an optional to a must-have feature across mobile devices."
"The near-zero power utilization of Atheros' AR6002 is impressive," said Joe Tate, HP vice president of operations and engineering, Handheld Global Business Unit. "The AR6002 provides a multitude of opportunities to deliver a richer mobile user experience with Wi-Fi."
Easy Design Implementation
The AR6002 family provides mobile designers with complete, turnkey, market-proven mobile Wi-Fi solutions, enabling ease-of-design and fast time-to-market. Implementation with the AR6002 solutions is enhanced with mature, pre-qualified ROCm software features augmented through collaborations with Microsoft, Qualcomm and other industry leaders.
Atheros' ROCm family features:
- Pre-installed WLAN driver support for the Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating system;
- The world's most integrated dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi reference platforms through its relationship with Qualcomm, enabling new-generation smartphones.
These engagements provide added support to mobile designers, facilitating rapid design of mobile products featuring high-performance Atheros Wi-Fi.
This new series of Atheros mobile Wi-Fi solutions is software-compatible with the first-generation, AR6001 ROCm platform which has been designed into numerous leading mobile Wi-Fi products. These include the Eye-Fi wireless memory card, the Fujitsu Siemens Computers Pocket LOOX T830 smartphone, the NEC FOMAR /WLAN dual-mode cellular/VoIP handset, N902iL for NTT DoCoMo, digital cameras including the Sony Cyber-shotR DSC-G1 and other, yet to be announced products.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Coexistence
The AR6002 is optimized and validated for coexistence with any certified Bluetooth on the market. In addition to implementing industry standard, 2-, 3-, and 4-wire protocols for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth coexistence in mobile devices, Atheros has developed advanced algorithms employed in the AR6002 that adjust the WLAN communication behavior when in the presence of Bluetooth devices.
Additional Features
The AR6002 family offers full-speed, hardware-based, security with the WPA, WPA2 and 802.11i standards and supports the industry-standardized Wi-Fi Protected Set-Up with Atheros JumpStart for Wireless. The solutions also offer a rich feature set to support Voice and video through polled QoS extensions (802.11e and WMM). The AR6002 provides full driver support for Windows Embedded CER, Windows MobileR, and Linux-based solutions.
Configuration Options
Atheros' AR6002 single-chip solution is available in single (2.4GHz) and dual-band (2.4/5GHz) options in CSP or BGA packages to satisfy a wide array of application design requirements. The AR6002 features substantial RBOM integration onto the chip with integrated power amplifier (PA), low noise amplifier (LNA) and RF switch in a leading total solution footprint of less than 50mm2.
- AR6002G: 11g 2.4GHz single-band solution in a BGA package
- AR6002GZ: 11g 2.4GHz single-band solution in a CSP package
- AR6002X: 11a/g 2.4/5GHz dual-band solution in a BGA package
- AR6002XZ: 11a/g 2.4/5GHz dual-band solution in a CSP package
EN-Genius Says…
In the handheld consumer applications Atheros is trying to capture with its AR6002 products, low power operation is just as critical as low price and it looks as if they have done a very good job of shaving off the miliwatts using both the usual and some unexpected tricks. They’ve also done some careful juggling of the price/performance equation to tailor their single-chip Wi-Fi link to the tight cost constraints that govern the cameras, printers, media players and other gadgets that are demanding wireless capabilities. After a couple of years of prodding, Atheros finally gave me a briefing that went a little beyond the usual features/functions/market strategy prattle so I can feel at least a bit more comfortable that these little radios will deliver the goods as-promised.
According to Atheros, some of the power savings comes from architectural improvements in their 9th generation chip, but most of the watt-shaving is the result of some dramatic changes in the way its firmware drives the device and how it relates to the host system.
 On the hardware side, Atheros has taken its standard architecture and done the usual things like careful partitioning of functional blocks to keep as much as possible of the chip off until it’s needed. They’ve also gone to great lengths to use high-threshold (low-leakage) transistors wherever possible. Together, this allows them to implement a sub-0.1 mW deep sleep mode that only wakes enough of the silicon up every 100 ms or so to see if there’s traffic it needs to listen to.
Most of the improvements in the operational power consumption are on the software side, including support for 802.11e UPASD (unscheduled automatic power save delivery) mode which allows a Wi-Fi client to sleep between packet strings. Atheros also runs a simulated UPASD mode that achieves almost all the power savings even if the AP its talking to is not 802.11e-capable. Because it has an on-chip controller and does not rely on the host processor for anything other than IP packet transfers, the part is able to support the wake-on-wireless mechanism that allows the client’s host processor to sleep unless there is actually packet traffic to process. This harks back to the to the good old days when hardware MACs were the rule before manufacturers cheaped out and started using the PC host processor as a protocol engine so they could save a little silicon.
Atheros says that much of the software-related tuning was made possible because they were able to get very tight coupling to the host processor and its OS. This involved working closely with Qualcomm, TI, and Microsoft to take advantage of available hooks that, they claim, might not be accessible to most chip makers. This has allowed them to offer full turnkey solutions for Windows mobile OS-based implementations for CDMA, WCDMA HSDPA phones. This combination of hardware and software tuning allows the part to draw only 1.42 mW while supporting a Wi-Fi connection at idle (no data transfer), 140 mW during a file download, and a jaw-dropping 0.06 mW (yes, that’s 60 µW) in standby/sleep mode (with DTIM = 3).
The software mods also extend to the SDIO host interface which has been tweaked to be able to routinely shove up to 22 Mbit/s worth of IP traffic -- about as much as you’ll be able to ever hope to get out of an 802.11g link. I was not able to ascertain whether this development is related in any way to the Murata/Sychip recently-announced software solution for high-speed transfers over SDIO (see Sychip's October 23, 2007 press release for details) but, given the close working relationship they have, I would not be surprised.
Although these claims are very aggressive, I’ve seen the difference an efficient use of the API can make in other applications and I’ll buy Atheros story of improved throughput and better power management -- although I am not sure that other companies with deep experience in handheld products (such as CSR) couldn’t duplicate most, or all, the same power-saving, data-accelerating features. But regardless of whether CSR can match some or all these capabilities, Atheros throughput and power savings are very impressive and don’t seem to be duplicated by several other leading Wi-Fi chip makers. Atheros demonstrated at last week’s analyst event using a standard personal media player as a test bed and got 70% lower power and much better throughput than the 12 - 15 Mbit/s the other adapter using a Brand M chip. Atheros claims this is typical of several other Wi-Fi chips they have tested.
Like the rest of its design, the AR6002's level of integration and performance reflects careful attention to the specific demands of the space/power/price-constrained applications for which it’s intended. Although the single-chip’s integrated PA and LNA, and antenna switch, don’t give it the performance you’d expect to see if you used some external components, or in a two-chip solution, it’s low BOM cost and extremely small form factor (under 50 mm2) make it an excellent candidate for the cameras, printers, media players and other consumer goods that will use these chips as a substitute for a USB connection. Atheros would not share the RF output power because it is still not completely characterized but they are confident that it will supply more than enough for the short-haul applications it that it’s targeted to serve. The transceiver probably even has enough clout to support a Wi-Fi hot spot phone but it’s nice to know that Atheros has included provisions to accept an off-chip PA if needed. Likewise an external LAN is available if the integrated LNA sensitivity (-90 dBm @ 11 Mbit/s, -77 dBm@ 54 Mbit/s) is not enough.
By carefully managing power and balancing performance against other critical factors, Atheros seems to have come up with a one-chip Wi-Fi solution that’s well-suited for the game machines, media players, cameras and other handheld consumer devices it was designed to serve. If the range lives up to Atheros goals (or if you don’t mind adding a PA and LNA) its tiny form factor and extremely low power consumption could it a great choice for Wi-Fi phones too.
The same features make it a natural for adding Wi-Fi capabilities to regular cellular phones but will the carriers allow Wi-Fi to actually work properly in their networks? With only a few exceptions (like TMobile) US wireless carriers are either not offering Wi-Fi in their phones, or crippling the hell out of any Wi-Fi features they do allow. If you’re interested in how and why mobile Wi-Fi is being kept at such a primitive level, I suggest you check out Wireless Network Neutrality written by Tim Wu, Professor, Columbia University School of Law, who does a great job of documenting many of the shenanigans our wireless carriers have been pulling.
So will the carriers see the error of their ways and let their customers pack Wi-Fi-enabled cell phones? Obviously, Qualcomm thinks so if they’re teaming with Atheros on this and as much as I don’t like the way they do business, it’s usually a mistake to bet against this San Diego-based wireless juggernaut.
Atheros AR6002 second-generation ROCm solutions are currently sampling and will be in volume production in the first quarter of 2008. Atheros was reluctant to offer any pricing information beyond saying that it was extremely competitive and that total BOM cost is significantly under the $10 level that today’s consumer-oriented Wi-Fi systems must hit.
Data Sheet
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