Atheros Communications has reportedly introduced power-efficient Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet controllers for PC applications -- the AR8151 and AR8152.

 

These two offerings are the newest additions to the Atheros (News - Alert) ETHOS portfolio. The AR8151 and AR8152 provide PC customers with Ethernet solutions, designed to reduce overall system energy consumption, while exceeding the size and RBOM requirements for next-generation PCs, said company officials.

 

The Atheros AR8151 is the “industry’s smallest and greenest Gigabit Ethernet controller” that complies with the new IEEE (News - Alert) 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet draft specification, said company officials. This solution delivers more than 85 percent savings over non-compliant solutions

 

The AR8151 has been designed to enhance the user experience in consumer entertainment-class and SMB notebooks, and desktop PCs. Company officials said that it supports simultaneous operation of data, voice and video applications in homes and offices.

 

The second offering, AR8152, is the company’s fast Ethernet controller, and it brings ETHOS technology innovations to the expanding PC market, including netbook, notebook and desktop PC platforms, company officials said. The ETHOS Cable Diagnostic feature assesses Ethernet cable lengths and accordingly adjusts power consumption.

 

To enhance power consumption for mobile PC operation, the company has also implemented its ETHOS Automatic Power Savings technique. Thanks to APS, the AR8151 consumes less than 10mW in the most common use scenario, when a notebook is connected wirelessly with the Ethernet cable unplugged.

 

This ETHOS APS technique provides substantial energy efficiencies when PCs are in standby/no-link mode by automatically turning off most of the chip’s circuitry, said company officials.

 

Company officials said that the AR8151 GbE and AR8152 Fast Ethernet solutions feature the “highest levels of integration, resulting in the industry’s smallest PCI (News - Alert) Express controllers.” Also, both the solutions achieve RBOM integration by including the switching and LDO regulator on chip in addition to 256 bytes of embedded one time programmable Memory, and by reducing the number of resistors and capacitors.

 

Currently, the AR8151 Gigabit Ethernet and AR8152 Fast Ethernet controllers are sampling.