Icera, a specialist in software defined wireless modem chipsets, has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to merge with Sirific Wireless, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in advanced CMOS RF transceivers. The deal 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 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 is claimed to be 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. Icera is also claimed to be the only company able to achieve this completely soft solution shipping today in commercial devices.