French chipmaker Sequans Communications further established its standing in the WiMAX ecosystem, announcing an investment from Motorola Inc. along with an agreement with Alcatel Inc. to supply the vendor with WiMAX chips for customer premise equipment in India and other emerging markets.
Though Sequans didn’t come right out and say that Motorola will use its WiMAX chips as it launches WiMAX handsets, it’s logical to expect Motorola to do just that, and possibly more.
John Donohue, managing director of Motorola Ventures in Europe, said the deal with Sequans demonstrates Motorola’s commitment to investing in technology firms “as part of the strategy of delivering Wi4, Motorola’s next-generation wireless solutions to the marketplace.”
Sequans has showed off its 802.16e-2005 chips for devices at WiMAX Forum PlugFests, claiming its SQN1110 draws a mere 350 milliwatts of power and delivers throughput of more than 10 megabits per second. The company said its SQN1110 was designed to exceed WiMAX Forum Wave 2 certification and should be available early next year.
But the company also makes chips for base stations, both fixed and wireless, and with Motorola’s “substantial” investment in Sequans, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if Motorola tapped Sequans for WiMAX chips for its Wi4 portfolio.
In July, Georges Karam, Sequans president and chief executive officer, confirmed that the company’s 802.16e-compliant chip was in the hands of LG Electronics Co. Ltd. and said the company had picked up $24 million during a third round of funding, bringing its total venture-capital financing to about $34 million before the Motorola investment. Sequans did not announce how much Motorola invested in it.
Sequans has said its chips will be built into PC cards manufactured by MiTAC, but primarily the company is aiming to land its chips in handsets. Intel Corp. is expected to dominate the WiMAX chip market for laptops.
Meanwhile, Alcatel announced that it’s planning to use Sequans’ mobile WiMAX chips in its CPE in India beginning in the second quarter of 2007 as part of Alcatel’s Broadband for All program. Alcatel’s Sylvie Richer, vice president of the vendor’s broadband wireless access business, said, “the capabilities of their chips allows for the development of very cost-effective fixed, nomadic, or mobile WiMAX CPE.”
Richer also spelled out that Alcatel is aiming for wide-scale deployments of WiMAX and expects that Sequans’ technology will help the company get low-cost devices into the hands of consumers quickly.
Sequans hasn’t talked publicly about whether it will be involved with mobile WiMAX launches in the United States, but as Clearwire Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp. race to offer mobile WiMAX in major U.S. markets, it’s likely Sequans will command a comfortable place at the chip-vendor table given that Motorola has invested large sums of money into Clearwire and was front and center as a vendor of choice as Sprint Nextel announced it’s WiMAX network plans.
Karam said Sequans will undergo further rounds of funding, but he said he expects the company to be cash-positive by the end of 2007.
