Atheros has announced various new 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0 products in various formats. Atheros coming up with acombination solutionis not surprising. They had previous combination solutions on a single board to provide integrated solutions.What is different about this solution is that they are launching a 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0 combination chipset.
Atheros has been a notable player in thein the short range wireless industry. In the past, they had been mainly focused on stand-alone chipsets. With the announcement of theAR9485, which is a system in a package which includes 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0, Atheros plans to move this towards the mobileComputing and Tablet segment of the market.
This could be the markof an inflexion point for the combination chipset market. There is enough interest in combination chipsets currently in the mobile computing and tablet market, not to mention the mobile device and handheld market where real estate on a device is even more scarse, fora company that had previously focused on stand alone chipsets tonow showcasea combination chipset. Keep an eye for a ramp up oncombination chipsets in2011 in various segments of the market.
