Monday, July 1, 2013

Altair Raises $25 Million for LTE Chips

Altair Semiconductor, which develops high-performance, single-mode LTE chipsets, closed a $25 million round of funding.  The company is based in Hod Hasharon, Israel.


Altair introduced its first single-mode LTE chipset in 2009.  The company was first to release a FDD/TDD chipset and the first with a commercial LTE chipset exceeding 100Mbps.  The company said it has over 100 different product design wins to date, including tablets, Ultrabooks, portable hotspots, USB dongles and routers, designed by more than 30 global customers.

The funding came from existing investors Bessemer, BRM, Giza, JVP and Pacific Technology.

"As LTE networks reach coverage parity with 3G in key markets, carriers realize that removing 3G and adapting LTE-only is the most efficient way to significantly lower costs and increase mobile broadband attach rates," said Oded Melamed, Co-Founder and CEO of Altair. "Our month over month increase in chip shipments is a testament to the widespread move towards LTE-only across the industry and we intend to use the funds to support our customers as they ramp high volume production and deploy their products in the field."

http://www.altair-semi.com