Atheros New AR7400 Powerline Chipset is IEEE 1901 and Homeplug AV Compliant

Atheros recently announced the availability of the AR7400 chipset. The new Powerline Ethernet communication technology is capable of using the existing electrical wiring inside the home to transfer data at up to 500Mbps, a capacity that is 2.5 times faster than what is currently available among Homeplug AV products.  Atheros said with this capacity household should be able to experience HD quality entertainment from every power outlet in the home.

This version of the AR7400 is an upgrade from the INT6400.  The AR7400 Ethernet Powerline chipset features a faster processor, Gigabit Ethernet-ready high-speed host interface.  It supports both SDRAM and DDR memory and includes a high-performance, hardware-based packet classification engine to support carrier-grade quality of service (QoS).

The introduction of Atheros AR7400 should see more software and hardware from independent software vendors (ISV) and device manufacturers.  Because of its programmability this chipset will cut across different areas of the connected home, energy management, home automation and entertainment.  Household will have more control over the appliances in the home, helping them to save energy and money.

The Atheros AR7400 as already been adopted by Monster, a Audio and Video accessories supplier, in their new PowerNet 1G Powerline Ethernet Adapter.