Broadcom 
will acquire Beceem Communications , a privately-held developer of 4G chipsets, for approximately $316 million in cash.
Beceem has been a developer of WiMAX silicon solutions, but earlier this year announced plans for chipset that address both LTE and WiMAX. The company claims its silicon technology supports peak broadband download speeds of up to 200Mbps. Its existing WiMAX chip has been seen major deployment in the Clearwire/Sprint ecosystem through leading OEMs and ODMs.
Broadcom said the deal accelerates its entry into the 4G market. Beceem's technology will be combined with Broadcom's 2G/3G cellular solutions, wireless LAN, Bluetooth, GPS, Ethernet switching and other associated IP.
Beceem's Chief Executive Officer, Surendra Babu Mandava, said: "When combined with Broadcom's 2G and 3G cellular solutions and broader wired and wireless communications portfolio, our 4G products will enable operators to roll out next generation wireless broadband solutions while providing support for existing networks. Our combined offering will be one of the most extensive and formidable in the industry."
About Beceemhttp://www.broadcom.com
http://www.beceem.com
- In February 2010, Beceem Communications announced plans for a single chip that integrates both LTE and WiMAX technology. The BCS500 multi-mode chip will support the latest revisions of the IEEE 802.16 standard, namely 16e and 16m, as well as the 3GPP-LTE standard, based on Release 8 specifications. It is the only device chip to support UE Class 4 capabilities. In addition, it will support both TDD and FDD configurations for LTE and IEEE 802.16m, even enabling real-time band/channel reconfiguration through a unique multi-mode "autosense" feature that automatically detects the network type. Beceem expects to begin sampling in Q4 2010 with mass production in Q2 2011.
- Beceem was founded in October 2003 and is based in Santa Clara, California with engineering offices in Irvine and Bangalore.
- Beceem is headed by Babu Mandava, who previously was a co-founder of Centillium Communications, a semiconductor company well known for product innovations in ADSL and VOIP. Beceem was also co-founded by Dr. Arogyaswami Paulraj, a professor at Stanford where he supervises the Smart Antennas Research Group. Prior to Beceem, Paulraj founded Iospan Wireless Inc., which was later acquired by Intel.
