BELLEVUE, Wash.—Broadband and home networking chip vendor Lantiq announced a collaboration with Qualcomm Atheros, the networking and connectivity subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc., to produce an advanced broadband home gateway reference design.
The joint design integrates the Qualcomm Atheros QCA9880 3x3 802.11ac solution and the Lantiq XWAY ARX300 or VRX288 universal gateway chipsets, Lantiq (Neubiberg, Germany) said. The collaboration will provide 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, the firm said.
With full test and validation of the design by Lantiq and Qualcomm Atheros, OEMs can focus effort on value-added features built on a platform that achieves maximum wired and wireless throughput for triple-play broadband services, Lantiq said. 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, the firm said.
Lantiq claims the XWAY ARX300 and VRX288 are cost-optimized home gateway chipsets supporting either ADSL or VDSL broadband access.
"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," said Dirk Wieberneit, senior of the CPE Business Unit, Lantiq, in a statement. "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."
The reference design will be available to Qualcomm Atheros and Lantiq customers in the third quarter of this year, with an immediate transition to volume production to support customer roll-outs, Lantiq said.