Qualcomm Atheros is releasing a family of new chips for 802.11ac — an emerging, faster wireless standard set to overtake 802.11n. If you're a manufacturer ogling Qualcomm's Snapdragon 4, the single-stream WCN3680 with 802.11ac and integrated Bluetooth and FM complements the Snapdragon's impressive benchmark scores and built-in 802.11b/g/n connectivity. On the other hand, if you're looking for a standalone Wi-Fi module, you could do worse than the QCA9860 (3-stream) and QCA9862 (2-stream) 802.11ac/a/b/g/n and Bluetooth combo chips. The modules offer up to 1.3Gbps transfer speeds, tying Broadcom's BCM4360, as well as some fancy CPU use-optimizing architecture for faster transfers and longer battery life. We're hoping to see some new 802.11ac devices at MWC next week, and we'll keep you posted with what we find.