New Voice Over IP (VoIP) Chip for Wi-Fi Based Phone System

Atmel has announced its new Voice over IP (VoIP) IC. The AT76C902 runs the VoIP Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) stack, uCLinuxâ„¢ operating system software, and firmware enabling 802.11a/g (Wi-Fi) and voice compression/decompression.

AT76C902 consists of an ARM946â„¢ as VoIPs subsystems  - an ARM7â„¢ and 802.11a/g Media Access Controller (MAC) that implements the 802.11a/g protocols, and a CEVA-Teakâ„¢ DSP for voice processing functions.

AT76C902 supports on-the-fly encryption, decryption and authentication support for AES, DES/3DES and TKIP, supporting WPA and WPA2

This chip supports Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) and WMM Power Save modes.

WMM adds Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities to Wi-Fi networks. WMM Power Save is an improvement to the 802.11e amendment adding advanced power management functionality to WMM.

WMM Power Save is based on Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery (U-APSD), which, like WMM, is based on Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA).

U-APSD is a solution well suited for dynamic environments where Wi-Fi is generally deployed and allows clients supporting U-APSD to download all or some of the frames buffered by the access point during unscheduled service periods.

Richard Bisset, Product Marketing Director of Atmel’s Multimedia and Communications Product Group:

Atmel is very excited about the introduction of this chip. The AT76C902 has been very well received in the market and has been selected by several major Tier-one OEM makers…

Because of its architecture, the AT76C902 provides the ability to perform multiple functions that would otherwise not be able to be performed by a single-CPU-based processor. By moving to the uCLinux operating system software, we are able to provide our customers a feature-enriched software package in source code format without any licensing or royalties…

A complete development kit, AT76C902-DK,  including Atmel’s AT76C902 VoIP processor, AT76C517.11a/g baseband, flash memory and the Airoha single-chip 802.11g RF transceiver with integrated Power Amplifier (AL2236) is available to qualified customers.

AT76C902 packaged in a 208-pin BGA. Pricing for the chip starts around $18 (at 25000pcs).

Source: Atmel, September 13th, 2006