- Strengthens Icera's Competitive Position in the Wireless Chipset Market
BRISTOL, UK, April 7 /CNW/ - Icera Inc., the leader in software defined
wireless modem chipsets, today announced that it has signed a definitive
agreement to merge with Sirific Wireless, a fabless semiconductor company
specializing in advanced CMOS RF transceivers. This will enable Icera 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 deal significantly accelerates Icera's time to market and competitive
position for complete wireless modem chipsets used in mobile broadband
datacards, USB dongles, laptops, mobile internet devices and mobile phones.
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."
Tajinder Manku, Founder and CTO of Sirific Wireless said: "We are excited
by the opportunity to combine our resources with those of the Icera team to
create an industry-leading wireless modem chipset company."
Sirific's range of advanced single-chip, multi-band, multi-mode (HSDPA,
HSUPA, WCDMA, EDGE, GPRS, GSM) CMOS RF transceivers integrate advanced 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 Livanto(R) is the world's first software baseband for mobile
phones and cellular data devices. A new type of processor - DXP(R) in
Livanto(R), allows all the wireless modem functions to be implemented in a
software modem called Adaptive Wireless(TM). Icera is the only company able to
achieve this completely soft solution shipping today in commercial devices.
Livanto(R) delivers the world's highest performance HSPA solution,
enabling consumers to send and receive large email files with attachments,
speedily access web pages and download music tracks over the air in seconds.
Already supporting 2.5G standards, GSM, GPRS and EDGE as well as the highest
performance 3G (WCDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA), Livanto(R) will be developed for
additional air interfaces, including HSPA+ and LTE which can be consolidated
as a multimode solution on the same device.
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.
The boards of directors of each of the companies have approved the
merger. The closing, which is expected to occur in Q2 2008, remains subject to
customary closing conditions. The financial terms of the deal have not been
disclosed. The merged companies will use the Icera name.
About Icera
Icera is a fabless semiconductor company, pioneering high performance,
low power, software defined wireless modem chipsets for the fast growing
mobile broadband device market. Icera technology delivers the highest
performance modem solutions for USB dongles, datacards, laptops, mobile
internet devices and mobile phones. Founded in 2002, Icera is headquartered in
the UK, with design locations in Bristol and Cambridge, UK and Sophia
Antipolis, France, with sales offices in Europe, Japan, Taiwan and USA. For
more information, visit the Icera web site at http://www.icerasemi.com
About Sirific Wireless
Sirific Wireless Limited is a privately held fabless semiconductor
company that designs and develops CMOS RF transceiver integrated circuits for
multi-mode mobile devices. Sirific is Advancing RF CMOS(TM) with a portfolio
of single-chip 3.5G products that exceed today's industry standards to satisfy
the requirements of tomorrow's wireless applications. The company is
headquartered in Richardson, Texas, with design facilities in Richardson,
Texas, Waterloo, Ontario Canada. For more information about Sirific Wireless
visit http://www.sirific.com.
For further information: Sally Doherty, Icera, Tel: +44-1454-284859,
Email: sally@icerasemi.com
