Aquantia Unveils Game-Changing Enterprise Technology to Break Mobile Infrastructure Bottleneck and Deliver Unprecedented Throughput

AQrate Delivers 5-Fold Increase in Speed to WiFi Access Points on Legacy Cable Infrastructure

MILPITAS, Calif.-- October 06, 2014 -- Aquantia, the market leader of high-speed Ethernet connectivity solutions for data centers, mobile and enterprise infrastructure, today unveiled AQrate® technology, a game-changing product line that delivers 5 times higher throughput than the current Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) solutions without requiring any change to existing copper cabling infrastructure. AQrate enables the new generation of 802.11ac Wireless LAN Access Points (APs), enterprise switches and client devices to operate at unprecedented speeds. The products were first sampled in late 2013 and are currently in production.

According to Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), total mobile data traffic will surpass 30 Exabytes per month in 2018. An estimated 52 percent of that traffic will be offloaded from the cellular network to the fixed network through WiFi, adding to the vast amount of wireless data otherwise transmitted over WLAN in enterprise and campus environments. The 802.11ac WiFi wireless standard was developed to respond to this tsunami of data. As the second wave of the technology gets introduced, traffic aggregated on APs will surpass 1 Gigabit/sec. Dell'Oro Group market research indicates that 802.11ac upgrades, especially wave 2, will require additional Ethernet Switch bandwidth beyond what GbE technology can support.

Foreseeing the enormous potential for deploying next generation 802.11ac APs on legacy cabling infrastructure, Aquantia devised AQrate to transmit Ethernet data at 2.5 and 5 Gigabit/sec. (2.5GbE and 5GbE) over Cat5e cables up to 100 meters in length. AQrate also integrates Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology, which is a critical feature in WLAN access point deployments.

“With the introduction of AQrate, Aquantia proves once again that it has the unmatched ability to create technology disruptions and quickly deliver unique solutions to its customers,” said Faraj Aalaei, President and CEO of Aquantia. “Riding on the back of our strong performance in the data center market, we are now adding the emerging enterprise and mobile infrastructure market as a second strong leg to our exciting story. Ultimately, the AQrate technology has the potential to address a market of the size of the GbE ecosystem today, which is around 1 billion ports a year.”

Aquantia AQrate PHYs, designed in the 28nm process node, combine 2.5GbE and 5GbE as well as IEEE-compliant 10GBASE-T, 1000BASE-T (1GbE) and 100BASE-TX (100MbE), for transmission over up to 100m of twisted pair cabling. AQrate based products are backward compatible with legacy GbE and 100MbE products allowing for gradual upgrade of equipment. The AQrate PHY family integrates such features as Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE), 1588v2, MACsec and supports all PoE standards up to 60W. All AQrate products are now in production.

“The industry is gearing up for a massive upgrade of enterprise networks to handle the explosion of mobile computing traffic driven by next-generation 802.11ac access points,” said Bob Wheeler, principal analyst for networking at The Linley Group. “Aquantia has developed an enabling technology that can substantially increase network bandwidth without having to replace the massive amount of legacy Cat5e and Cat6 horizontal cabling used in most enterprise-campus networks. AQrate technology will be a welcome development for network administrators who are taking on the challenges of growing wireless-LAN traffic.”

The following selections from the AQrate Product Family are now available in production quantities:

• Quad – AQR405 is housed in a 25mm flip-chip BGA package enabling efficient high density design for high port-count and compact campus LAN and wiring closet Ethernet switches;
• Dual – Wireless Access Points, compact switches, and myriad applications leverage low power of AQR205 to create passively cooled solutions. Its 19mm flip-chip BGA package features flexible system interfaces including full KR (with auto-negotiation)/XFI/RXAUI/XAUI/2500BASE-X and SGMII;
• Single – The 19mm AQR105 is pin compatible to AQR205 providing the option for single or dual-port solutions with minimal design edits. The AQR105 features flexible system interfaces including full KR (with auto-negotiation)/XFI/RXAUI/XAUI/2500BASE-X and SGMII.

For more information about AQrate technology and products, contact Aquantia at info@aquantia.com.

About Aquantia

Aquantia is the leader in high-speed connectivity solutions for data centers, enterprise and mobile applications. As the number one supplier of 10GBASE-T PHYs in data centers, Aquantia has been consistently the first in the industry to deliver the technology in all process nodes and all port configurations, including the world’s first and only 10GBASE-T MAC/PHY device for servers. Aquantia’s ability to turn technological leadership into business success is evidenced by the fact that it has shipped more 10GBASE-T ports than all its competitors combined in the data centers. Aquantia is further expanding its leadership into the enterprise and mobile market segments with its flagship AQrate product line. Located in Silicon Valley, Aquantia is a venture-backed company, with strong tier-1 VCs and strategic investor support. For more information, visit www.aquantia.com.