BRISTOL, England, April 7 /PRNewswire/ --
- Strengthens Icera's Competitive Position in the Wireless Chipset
Market
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.
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