During the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month in Las Vegas, Atheros Communications demonstrated its AR6003 single-chip 802.11n Wi-Fi transceiver and AR1520 single-chip GPS solution. Both can deliver performance that’s better than ever in mobile applications.

The AR6003 is part of the Atheros ROCm (Radio-on-Chip-mobile) single-chip 11n family. It’s designed to combine superior mobile throughput, range, and energy efficiency in a single chip design. The result is a Wi-Fi solution capable of up to 85 Mbits/s of actual throughput to support demanding multimedia applications on smart phones, mobile gaming devices, and other portable consumer electronics products. It uses the company’s ecosystem of Align-based 1-stream 11n solutions, which are already featured in a wide array of netbooks, notebooks, and desktop PCs.

The transceiver brings the high-speed capability of 802.11n technology to mobile devices but without the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO). It can deliver actual end-user throughput up to four times that of mobile wireless local-area network (WLAN) solutions based on 11g. With its 11n capabilities, the AR6003 achieves up to 48-Mbit/s TCP/IP in the 2.4-GHz band in 20-MHz mode and an unprecedented 85-Mbit/s TCP/IP in 5 GHz in 40-MHz mode.

By leveraging advanced optional 11n features such as space-time block coding (STBC) and low-density parity check (LDPC), the AR6003 achieves its performance capabilities. STBC improves downlink performance to the mobile device, while LDPC encoding improves uplink performance of mobile clients to Atheros XSPAN-based and Align-based wireless access points (APs). Together, these features increase actual throughput levels over longer distances.

Also, the AR6003’s ultra-low current consumption significantly extends battery life while supporting the power demands of transmitting large media files. The transceiver employs the company’s patented on-chip Efficient Power Amplifier (EPA) technology to reduce the power typically consumed by internal PAs while delivering the output power of an external PA. The result is an average receive current consumption at 11n rates that is 20% lower than that of the AR6002, which was the industry’s previous lowest-power mobile WLAN solution.

In designing the AR6003, Atheros implemented a suite of advanced mobile wireless coexistence techniques known as Atheros Universal Wireless Cooperation in its firmware to significantly enhance the simultaneous operation of WLAN and Bluetooth in mobile devices. For example, its Shared Rx mechanism improves WLAN and Bluetooth coexistence by enabling the AR6003 to route the receive traffic through its internal low noise amplifier (LNA) directly to the Bluetooth RF port. Also, its Advanced Coexistence Enhancements employ advanced PTA-focused (Packet Traffic Arbitration) algorithms that allow the AR6003 to quickly examine the contents of WLAN frames to prioritize Wi-Fi traffic and optimize throughput while avoiding interference with Bluetooth operation.

Additionally, the AR6003 includes the Atheros Direct Connect AP Mode, which is the company’s peer-to-peer Wi-Fi technology for mobile devices. It delivers throughput levels up to 85 Mbits/s so the device can share media content with other Wi-Fi-enabled devices anywhere, anytime, while simultaneously maintaining Internet connectivity for e-mail, browsing, and file downloads. The ROCm software offers designers the flexibility to build an enhanced mobile device with host wakeup and Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS).

The AR6003 eliminates many external components compared to competitive mobile WLAN solutions. It features an integrated, linearized, high-efficiency PA and power-management unit (PMU) on chip, enabling direct connection to the battery. The result of this integration is the industry’s most compact standalone 11n solution, measuring a miniscule 5 by 5 mm (see the figure). It’s available in single-band (2.4 GHz) and dual-band (2.4/5 GHz) options in ball-grid array or chip-scale packages to satisfy a wide array of application design requirements. AR6003 devices are currently sampling and already designed into various mobile applications.

GPS location functionality is quickly becoming a must-have feature in a variety of mobile products. As users have become increasingly dependent on GPS technology, they are demanding greater accuracy and response time, even in tough navigation environments. GPS systems that work most of the time or with inconsistent accuracy are no longer acceptable. To address these growing, more rigorous requirements, Atheros has designed the AR1520 and the FYX Location Core technology from the ground up with the objective of enabling its customers to build mobile products with superior navigation accuracy and speed.

The third-generation, single-chip AR1520 GPS receiver is designed to work with the companion FYX 1.0 software suite. Based on the Atheros FYX Location Core, the AR1520 delivers greater navigation accuracy, faster location fixes, enhanced receive sensitivity, and lower power consumption, which makes it ideal for mobile consumer products such as personal navigation devices (PNDs), netbooks, smartbooks, portable gaming devices, media players, and smart phones.

The AR1520 has been road-tested for accuracy on some of the most challenging GPS test routes in the world like the urban canyons of downtown Chicago and Los Angeles, where the view to positioning satellites is largely obstructed. In these demanding comparison road tests, the AR1520 has consistently demonstrated best-in-class accuracy.

At the heart of the AR1520, the innovative FYX Location Core provides a strong combination of location accuracy, fast location fixes, leading receive sensitivity, and lower power. It uses a unique dual-engine design, one optimized for fast searching and one for accurate navigation tracking. The core also utilizes eight powerful, hardware-based search engines to secure satellite locations before handing them off to any of the available 16 dedicated tracking engines.

The search engines, which have been optimized for navigation-intensive applications, can be run as eight separate search engines for quicker reacquisition times or combined into one powerful engine for faster startup searches. To lower power consumption when full search power isn’t required, they can also be shut down in stages.

The Atheros tracking engines are also optimized for tracking. They are superior at maintaining a lock even on very weak satellite signals, rejecting multi-path and providing precision pseudo-range, velocity, and heading measurements. This unique dual-engine design not only enhances accuracy, it also results in greater power and cost efficiency than competing GPS chips.

Further, the AR1520 includes two features that deliver fast location fixes similar to an assisted GPS system, but without the need for network assistance. The Atheros ESP technology uses advanced Ephemeris Self-Prediction algorithms to generate satellite ephemeris for up to five days, with no network connection. It delivers ultra-fast startup times with improved positional accuracy. Even following a five-day period in “off” mode, an ESP-enabled mobile device can deliver a location fix in less than 10 seconds while maintaining high positional accuracy.

The Atheros AlwaysReady technology incorporates an advanced power domain architecture to keep the GPS chip always ready to get a hot-start fix. When placed in the company’s proprietary AlwaysReady tracking mode, the AR1520 continually monitors its own clock accuracy and wakes up to recalibrate at periodic intervals to maintain peak starting performance. This delivers the performance of assisted GPS without the need to connect to a network.

The AR1520’s dedicated tracking engines allow for power-hungry search engines to be powered down when not required, delivering high-accuracy urban canyon tracking performance while consuming less than 30 mW. In less strenuous suburban settings, its low-power tracking mode further reduces tracking power to well under 10 mW. The AlwaysReady mode enables the device to stay in “hot start” mode while sipping less than 1 mW.

The AR1520 combines a GPS RF front end and GPS baseband processor on a single die. Its 32-bit CPU enables faster processing power for both hosted and standalone configurations to provide greater design flexibility. Additionally, to minimize the bill of materials and overall solution cost, the AR1520 has integrated several external GPS system components, including the integrated low-noise amplifier (LNA) and loop filter and the on-board power regulators. As a result, fewer than 10 external system components are required.

The AR1520 is available in a 500-µm pitch CSP. The FYX 1.0 software suite provides Windows CE, Linux 2.6, and other operating system support for hosted applications. Additionally, the Atheros Application Development Kit (ADK) enables fast and easy integration of GPS into any device based on these operating systems. The AR1520 is sampling to customers now.