Sony Semiconductor Israel Ltd., formerly known as Altair Semiconductor, is an Israeli developer of high performance single-mode

Long Term Evolution In telecommunications, long-term evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless broadband communication for cellular mobile devices and data terminals. It is considered to be a "transitional" 4G technology, and is therefore also referred to as 3.9 ...

(LTE)

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chips ...

s. The company's product portfolio includes

baseband processor A baseband processor (also known as baseband radio processor, BP, or BBP) is a device (a chip or part of a chip) in a network interface controller that manages all the radio functions (all functions that require an antenna); however, this term ...

s, RF transceivers and a range of reference hardware products. Founded in 2005, Altair employs 190 employees in its Hod Hasharon, Israel headquarters and R&D center, and has regional offices in the United States, Japan, China, India, Finland, and France. Altair Semiconductor was the first chipset vendor to receive certification from

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...

to run on its 4G LTE network. Altair has also powered several devices launched on Verizon's network including the Ellipsis 7 tablet and HP

Chromebook Chromebook (sometimes stylized in lowercase as chromebook) is a line of laptops, desktops, tablets and all-in-one computers that run ChromeOS, a proprietary operating system developed by Google. Chromebooks are optimised for web access. They al ...

11.6"LTE. In January 2016, it was announced that

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

was acquiring Altair for $212 Million. Altair was renamed Sony Semiconductor Israel on 29 March 2020.

Corporate History

Altair was founded in May 2005 by former

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

executives Oded Melamed, Yigal Bitran, and Eran Eshed, with extensive

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

and

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

silicon Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...

experience. Altair's management and technology executives were among the founding team of Libit Signal Processing, a

fabless Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

chip company acquired by Texas Instruments in 1999 for $365 million. As of 2013, Altair was privately held, and had raised in excess of $120M financing. The company has a long history of developing 4G semiconductor solutions and prior to strategically shifting full focus to

3GPP The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is an umbrella term for a number of standards organizations which develop protocols for mobile telecommunications. Its best known work is the development and maintenance of: * GSM and related 2G and ...

LTE in 2006, had developed solutions for WiMAX and Japanese XGP standards. In January 2016 it was announced that

was acquiring Altair for $212 Million. In 2019, Nohik Semel became the CEO of the company, replacing Oded Melamed.

Market

LTE has emerged as the de facto 4G (4th Generation) technology, after having won the battle over rival technology

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMA ...

, 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 Average revenue per user (ARPU), sometimes known as average revenue per unit, is a measure used primarily by consumer communications, digital media, and networking companies, defined as the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers. The ...

) remain flat, carriers face a need to offer advanced and cost effective mobile broadband services which will offset the profitability decline and increase customer satisfaction. According to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), 338 telecoms operators in 101 countries have committed to commercial LTE network deployments or are engaged in trials, technology testing or studies. LTE networks are already fully deployed in key markets such as the U.S. and South Korea. Analysts forecast the number of LTE subscribers worldwide to reach 1B subscribers by 2016. In addition to connecting the consumer device market, LTE has the potential to push forward the vision of the

Internet of Things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

(IoT). As of 2013, the internet had about 10–15 billion devices connected to it. Industry experts predict some 25 billion devices will be connected by 2015, and 50 billion by 2020. Many of these connections, whether consumer, enterprise, industrial, or other will require Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) connections, and given the connectivity requirements, a majority of these connection could be via LTE networks.

Milestones

*In November 2009, Altair announced the first commercial grade LTE

User equipment In the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), user equipment (UE) is any device used directly by an end-user to communicate. It can be a hand-held telephone, a laptop computer equipped with a mobile b ...

(UE) based on its FourGee-3100. *In October 2011, Altair achieved the world's fastest Time-Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) speed demonstration (download speeds of more than 100 Mbit/s) in a live over-the-air demonstration with Japanese carrier

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

. *In August 2012, Altair was certified by

to operate on Verizon's 4G LTE network. *In September 2012,

SK Telecom SK Telecom Co., Ltd., abbreviated as SKT ( or ) is a South Korean wireless telecommunications operator and former film distributor and is part of the SK Group, one of the country's largest chaebols. It leads the local market with 50.5 perce ...

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

and Altair demoed the world's first

handover In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transf ...

technology that supports both FDD and TDD on one device. *In February 2013, Altair announced the launch of its FourGee-3800/6300 chipset. *In November 2013,

selected Altair's chipset to power its own Ellipsis 7 tablet. *In January 2014, it was announced that Altair's chipset was at the core of the HP

11 LTE.

Products

Altair's product portfolio includes baseband processors,

multi-band In telecommunications, a multi-band device (including (2) dual-band, (3) tri-band, (4) quad-band and (5) penta-band devices) is a communication device (especially a mobile phone) that supports multiple radio frequency bands. All devices which ha ...

RF transceivers, and a range of reference hardware and product level protocol stack software conforming to

LTE standards. Altair products are based on proprietary

Software-Defined Radio Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that conventionally have been implemented in analog hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/ demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented ...

(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 consumer products, including tablets,

netbooks A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in l ...

, USB modems, CPEs,

Smartphones A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as mult ...

as well as

Machine to Machine Machine to machine (M2M) is direct communication between devices using any communications channel, including wired communication, wired and wireless. Machine to machine communication can include industrial instrumentation, enabling a sensor or met ...

(m2m) and

(IoT) devices. Baseband Processors * FourGee-3100 is a Category 3 (100 Mbit/s) LTE baseband/RF transceiver chipset solution conforming to 3GPP Release 9 LTE specifications * FourGee-3800 is a Category 4 (150 Mbit/s) LTE baseband/RF transceiver chipset solution conforming to 3GPP Releases 9, 10 and 11 LTE-Advanced specifications * FourGee-3802 is a Category 6 (300 Mbit/s) LTE baseband/RF transceiver chipset solution conforming to 3GPP Releases 9, 10 and 11 LTE-Advanced specifications RF Transceivers * FourGee-6202 is a multi-band LTE-FDD & TDD MIMO transceiver that supports frequency bands between 400 and 2700 MHz * FourGee-6300 is a multi-band LTE-FDD & TDD MIMO transceiver that supports frequency bands between 400 and 3800 MHz Reference Platforms * LTE Historical Platforms *FourGee-2150/6150 is a mobile WiMAX baseband/RFIC chipset 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

Awards

In 2008, Altair won a Best of WIMAX World award in the category of chip design. In 2012, Altair was selected as a finalist for the Red Herring Top 100 Europe award, a prestigious list honoring the year's most promising private technology ventures from the European business region. In 2013, Altair won the LTE North America award for Best Chipset of Processor Product. In 2014, Altair was once again selected as a finalist for the Red Herring Top 100 Europe award.

External links

Altair Semiconductor Homepage

* ttps://venturebeat.com/2013/07/01/altair-semiconductor-raises-25m-for-cheap-efficient-lte-chipsets/ Altair Semiconductor raises $25M for cheap, efficient LTE chipsets – VentureBeat
H-P Chromebook Points to Trends in Chips, Patents – Wall Street Journal

Interview: Eran Eshed, Co-Founder, Altair Semiconductor – Microwaves & RF

Interview with Eran Eshed of Altair on LTE developments & trends – LTE World

Movers & Shakers Interview with Eran Eshed, Co-founder and VP of Marketing and Business Development, Altair Semiconductor – Frost & Sullivan

References

{{Sony Semiconductor companies of Israel Fabless semiconductor companies Sony subsidiaries 2016 mergers and acquisitions Electronics companies established in 2005 Israeli companies established in 2005 Privately held companies of Israel