Designed to reduce the cost of residential gateway devices, the chip also integrates many discrete components required by previous 11g access points.

The chip, called the AR5006AP-G, builds on Atheros' established 802.11g single-chip technology by adding a 180-MHz MIPS R4K as the network processor for full routing capabilities.

"Now you can have a full AP [access point] in a space that's not much bigger than a USB dongle," said Sheung Li, product line manager at Atheros Communications (Sunnyvale, Calif.) "We've done it without sacrificing performance. We're fully 802.11i [security] and WME [quality-of-service] compliant." Only memory and about 200 additional discrete components need be added, he said. All told, a complete AP requires a footprint of only 1.5 by 2.5 inches.

Space requirements are based on a memory estimate ranging from 2 Mbytes on the low end to a typical implementation of 8 Mbytes. With the chip, the company estimates the overall bill-of-materials reduction for a .11g AP to be 20 percent.

The AR5006AP-G is sampling now and is priced at under $13 each in quantities of 10,000. Volume production is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2005. Other target embedded applications include media and print servers and external hard-drive storage devices.