Lantiq Announces Next-Generation Home Gateway Collaboration with Qualcomm Atheros

MUNICH and NEUBIBERG, Germany, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Lantiq, a leading supplier of broadband access and home networking technologies, today announced collaboration with Qualcomm Atheros, the networking and connectivity subsidiary of Qualcomm, Inc., to produce an advanced broadband home gateway reference design. Delivering superior xDSL and in-home Wi-Fi™, the joint design integrates the Qualcomm Atheros QCA9880 3x3 802.11ac solution and the Lantiq XWAY™ ARX300 or VRX288 universal gateway chipsets. 

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The collaboration provides gateway manufacturers with a complete software and hardware reference design featuring the newest evolution of 802.11 Wi-Fi and proven DSL broadband gateway functionality. With full test and validation of the design by Lantiq and Qualcomm Atheros, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can focus effort on value-added features built on a platform that achieves maximum wired and wireless throughput for triple-play broadband services. To ensure end-to-end Gigabit wireless interoperability, the reference design enables manufacturer readiness for the first wave of Wi-Fi certification of 802.11ac products, targeted by the industry for the first quarter of 2013.

Reference Design Highlights

Selected by many major operators and OEMs worldwide for home gateway designs, the Lantiq XWAY ARX300 and VRX288 are market leading cost-optimized home gateway chipsets supporting either ADSL or VDSL broadband access. Features include:

• High-performance dual-processor architecture with application processor CPU and dedicated 32-bit protocol processing engine that assures wirespeed Gigabit routing performance with zero load on the application processor.
• For the Lantiq ARX300 family the integrated, flexible 802.11n 2.4GHz WLAN connectivity with up to 300 Mbps provides zero-packet-error rate technology and a "Thick MAC" architecture to offload processor intensive operations from the main CPU
• VDSL2 technology with advanced DSL Physical Layer features and service improvement techniques like Erasure Decoding & ITU-T Universal Retransmission for up to 100/50 Mbps (downstream/upstream) data rates on VDSL networks to handle multiple IPTV streams and concurrent digital voice and data service access.

Qualcomm Atheros' QCA9880 3-stream 802.11ac networking solution is part of the company's complete ecosystem of mobile, computing, consumer electronics, and home and office networking solutions featuring Gigabit performance. The device supports 80 MHz mode and 256 QAM to deliver 1.3 Gbps PHY rates.  The QCA9880 features an integrated CPU core to reduce host processor loads and assist fast, seamless integration of the 802.11ac capability on the gateway platform. The QCA9880 also features Qualcomm Atheros' Wake-on-Wireless™ (WoW) technology, which enables the gateway to monitor background Wi-Fi traffic while the overall system remains in sleep mode, resulting in a significant reduction in system power consumption. Delivered as a PCIe module that includes an integrated high power amplifier to maximize coverage, the Qualcomm Atheros 802.11ac solution is easily integrated into the Lantiq platform, which includes the field-proven Universal Gateway software suite.

Comments

Dirk Wieberneit, SVP/GM of the CPE Business Unit, Lantiq: "Customer interest confirms that advanced home networks will operate with a mix of wired and wireless technologies that combine to deliver the best possible end-consumer experience.  One of the unique benefits of the Lantiq and Qualcomm Atheros smart integration is that the Wi-Fi subsystem offloads the main processor so that the CPU power is available for other applications. We are very pleased to team with Qualcomm Atheros to accelerate delivery of next generation gateway designs that bring new levels of Wi-Fi performance to the home networking market."

Brian McGee, Vice President, Product Management, Networking Business Unit, Qualcomm Atheros: "Qualcomm Atheros' new-generation Wi-Fi combined with Lantiq's leading xDSL solutions for gateways will enable a new class of Gigabit-capable connectivity to support the array of 802.11ac client devices, including smartphones, tablets and consumer electronics, which we expect will come to market in the coming year. With Qualcomm Atheros' 11ac on both the networking and client ends of the Wi-Fi link, gateway customers will have the assurance of delivering high-performance connectivity virtually anywhere in the home."

Availability

The integrated and tested reference design will be available to Qualcomm Atheros and Lantiq customers in the third calendar quarter of this year, with an immediate transition to volume production to support customer roll-outs.

About LANTIQ

Lantiq offers a broad and innovative product portfolio for next-generation networks and the digital home. The company specializes in broadband communications encompassing analog, digital and mixed-signal ICs along with comprehensive software suites. Lantiq is a fabless company and its semiconductor solutions are deployed by major carriers and in home networks in every region of the world. Further information is available at: lantiq.com, via lantiq.com/rss and on Twitter at: twitter.com/lantiq.

SOURCE Lantiq