UK based software defined wireless modem chipset developer, Icera has announced plans to merge with Sirific Wireless, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in CMOS RF transceivers. Icera says that the merger will enable it to deliver a complete chipset solution for the mobile broadband market, which industry analysts expect to grow from just 90 million subscribers today to 1.3 billion by 2012.
The company secured US$40 million in additional funding last week. Icera has now raised over $140M in equity funding since it was founded in 2002.
Stan Boland, President and CEO of Icera, said: "Sirific has industry leading CMOS RF expertise which greatly complements Icera's category-defining soft baseband technology. The merger of the two companies enables Icera to deliver all of the complex modem silicon to manufacturers of cellular data devices and phones, strengthening our emerging position as a tier 1 supplier in the mobile broadband market."
Sirific's range of single-chip, multi-band, multi-mode (HSDPA, HSUPA, WCDMA, EDGE, GPRS, GSM) CMOS RF transceivers integrate direct up-/down-conversion architectures, a patented frequency synthesizer, a dual-receive path to support receive diversity and a DigRF-compliant baseband interface to increase functionality, while reducing cost, size and power consumption. Icera's new type of processor - DXP in Livanto, allows all the wireless modem functions to be implemented in a software modem called Adaptive Wireless.
The existing Sirific design locations in Richardson, Texas, USA and Waterloo, Canada will be retained. These locations will continue to focus on leading edge CMOS RF silicon and system design. This will bring the total number of design locations for the combined company to five and the total number of employees to 260.
Posted to the site on 7th April 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/30351.php