Altair Semiconductor
Encyclopedia
Altair Semiconductor is a developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high performance 4G
semiconductors. The company offers solutions for 3GPP Long Term Evolution
(LTE), and its product portfolio includes baseband processors, RF
transceivers and a range of reference hardware
products. Founded in 2005, Altair employs 120 engineers in its Hod Hasharon, Israel
headquarters and R&D center, and has regional offices in the United States
, Japan
, China
and Germany
, and representatives in Korea
and Taiwan
.
executives Oded Melamed, Yigal Bitran, and Eran Eshed, with extensive broadband
and wireless
silicon
experience. Altair's management and technology executives were among the founding team of Libit Signal Processing, a fabless chip company acquired by Texas Instruments in 1999 for $365 million. The company's scientists and software engineers have collaboratively developed more than twenty complex mixed-signal silicon products, spanning six different broadband wired and wireless technologies.
Altair is privately held, and has raised $42M in three rounds of financing to date.
The company has a long history of developing 4G semiconductor solutions and prior to strategically shifting full focus to 3GPP
LTE in 2006, had developed solutions for WiMAX and Japanese XGP standards.
(4th Generation) technology, after having won the battle over rival technology WiMAX
, which failed to gain global carrier acceptance and critical deployment mass. As data usage minutes are on a steep increase vector, and voice ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is on a constant decline, carriers face a need to offer advanced and cost effective mobile broadband services which will offset the profitability decline and increase customer satisfaction.
LTE has gained strong momentum over the past two years, and has been adopted by more than 100 carriers in more than 40 countries. Tier one carriers such as Verizon Wireless
and AT&T
in the US, NTT DoCoMo
and Softbank
in Japan, China Mobile
and Vodafone
in Germany are all currently conducting extensive trials as well as rolling out commercial deployments of LTE. Analysts forecast the number of LTE subscribers worldwide to surpass 200 million by 2015.
Altair was the first pure-play LTE semiconductor supplier to announce and demonstrate a commercial grade LTE chipset and software, in September 2009. Since then, the company has completed extensive interoperability testing with most of the five leading wireless infrastructure vendors, and has participated in six field trials and has one commercial service launch.
In July, 2010, Altair announced a partnership with IPWireless to develop a suite of multi-band LTE modem products.
In November, 2010 Mobyland
, a Polish mobile network operator, selected Altair Semiconductor to power the First Commercial-Grade LTE Solution in Poland
, an LTE-USB modem based on Altair's FourGee-3100/6200 technology and developed by IPWireless.
RF transceivers, and a range of reference hardware and product level protocol stack software, implementing standards which include 3GPP LTE, mobile WiMAX 802.16e and XGP.
Altair products are based on proprietary Software-Defined Radio
(SDR) and are small and power-optimized. They support both FDD and TDD in any worldwide LTE frequency band. The chipsets can be used in a range of products, including USB modems, CPEs, Smartphones and other consumer handheld devices.
Baseband Processors
RF Transceivers
Reference Platforms
4G
In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to the 3G and 2G families of standards. In 2009, the ITU-R organization specified the IMT-Advanced requirements for 4G standards, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s...
semiconductors. The company offers solutions for 3GPP Long Term Evolution
3GPP Long Term Evolution
3GPP Long Term Evolution, usually referred to as LTE, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. It is based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies, increasing the capacity and speed using new modulation techniques...
(LTE), and its product portfolio includes baseband processors, RF
RF
-Science and technology:* Radiative forcing, a measure of the change in balance of the energy absorbed and emitted by the Earth's atmosphere* "Rate of flow", as in Volumetric flow rate* Radio frequency...
transceivers and a range of reference hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
products. Founded in 2005, Altair employs 120 engineers in its Hod Hasharon, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
headquarters and R&D center, and has regional offices in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and representatives in Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
Corporate History
Altair was founded in May 2005 by former Texas InstrumentsTexas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
executives Oded Melamed, Yigal Bitran, and Eran Eshed, with extensive broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
and wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
silicon
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
experience. Altair's management and technology executives were among the founding team of Libit Signal Processing, a fabless chip company acquired by Texas Instruments in 1999 for $365 million. The company's scientists and software engineers have collaboratively developed more than twenty complex mixed-signal silicon products, spanning six different broadband wired and wireless technologies.
Altair is privately held, and has raised $42M in three rounds of financing to date.
The company has a long history of developing 4G semiconductor solutions and prior to strategically shifting full focus to 3GPP
3GPP
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project is a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations, known as the Organizational Partners...
LTE in 2006, had developed solutions for WiMAX and Japanese XGP standards.
Market
LTE is emerging as the de-facto 4G4G
In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to the 3G and 2G families of standards. In 2009, the ITU-R organization specified the IMT-Advanced requirements for 4G standards, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s...
(4th Generation) technology, after having won the battle over rival technology WiMAX
WiMAX
WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...
, which failed to gain global carrier acceptance and critical deployment mass. As data usage minutes are on a steep increase vector, and voice ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is on a constant decline, carriers face a need to offer advanced and cost effective mobile broadband services which will offset the profitability decline and increase customer satisfaction.
LTE has gained strong momentum over the past two years, and has been adopted by more than 100 carriers in more than 40 countries. Tier one carriers such as Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
and AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
in the US, NTT DoCoMo
NTT DoCoMo
is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
and Softbank
SoftBank
is a Japanese telecommunications and internet corporation, with operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-Commerce, Internet, broadmedia, technology services, finance, media and marketing, and other businesses....
in Japan, China Mobile
China Mobile
China Mobile Limited is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company that provides mobile voice and multimedia services through its nationwide mobile telecommunications network, the largest of its kind in the world...
and Vodafone
Vodafone
Vodafone Group Plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers , with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of...
in Germany are all currently conducting extensive trials as well as rolling out commercial deployments of LTE. Analysts forecast the number of LTE subscribers worldwide to surpass 200 million by 2015.
Altair was the first pure-play LTE semiconductor supplier to announce and demonstrate a commercial grade LTE chipset and software, in September 2009. Since then, the company has completed extensive interoperability testing with most of the five leading wireless infrastructure vendors, and has participated in six field trials and has one commercial service launch.
In July, 2010, Altair announced a partnership with IPWireless to develop a suite of multi-band LTE modem products.
In November, 2010 Mobyland
Mobyland
Mobyland is a Polish mobile phone network operator. Company objective is to develop a wireless telecommunications network based on the newest fourth generation technologies . The construction of an independent network is possible thanks to radio frequency reservations held by company...
, a Polish mobile network operator, selected Altair Semiconductor to power the First Commercial-Grade LTE Solution in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, an LTE-USB modem based on Altair's FourGee-3100/6200 technology and developed by IPWireless.
Products
Altair's product portfolio includes baseband processors, multi-bandMulti-band
In telecommunications, the terms multi-band, dual-band, tri-band, quad-band and penta-band refer to a device supporting multiple radio frequency bands used for communication...
RF transceivers, and a range of reference hardware and product level protocol stack software, implementing standards which include 3GPP LTE, mobile WiMAX 802.16e and XGP.
Altair products are based on proprietary Software-Defined Radio
Software-defined radio
A software-defined radio system, or SDR, is a radio communication system where components that have been typically implemented in hardware are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded computing devices...
(SDR) and are small and power-optimized. They support both FDD and TDD in any worldwide LTE frequency band. The chipsets can be used in a range of products, including USB modems, CPEs, Smartphones and other consumer handheld devices.
Baseband Processors
- FourGee-3100 is a fully optimized LTE CAT-3 (100Mbps down, 50Mbps up) baseband processor that operates with devices from mobileMobile phoneA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
handsets, data cards and USB dongles to various handheld consumer electronics devices. - FourGee-2150 is a mobile WiMAX baseband processor which implements full mobile WiMAX, Mobility System Profile Wave-2 MAC/PHY feature-set.
- FourGee-4150 is compliant with the PHS MoU eXtended Global Platform (XGP) 4G standard, and implements full PHY/MAC functionality.
RF Transceivers
- FourGee-6200 is a multi-band LTE-FDD MIMO transceiver that supports frequency bands between 700 and 2700 MHz.
- FourGee-6150 is a MIMO RF transceiver that supports LTE-TDD.
Reference Platforms
- LTE
- WIMAX
- XGP