Alereon Partners with Jazz Semiconductor for Ultra Wideband Enabled WirelessUSB Transceiver
SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Sept. 7, 2004—
Alereon, a fabless semiconductor company developing
innovative Ultra Wideband (UWB) wireless chipsets, today announced the
selection of Jazz Semiconductor as its foundry partner for its highly
integrated Ultra Wideband transceiver for wireless universal serial
bus (USB) applications.
Alereon used Jazz Semiconductor's proven, high volume silicon
germanium BiCMOS (SiGe BiCMOS) process to enable a cost effective
solution in a 7mm x 7mm package. Alereon believes that the UWB market
will experience significant growth over the next few years as the
emergence of the Multiband OFDM Alliance (MBOA) UWB standard fuels
demand for wireless USB connectivity in both consumer and PC
peripheral applications.
"Today's announcement is an important step on the path to
delivering our complete Ultrawideband WirelessUSB solution. We are
proud to have a foundry partner such as Jazz Semiconductor
manufacturing our transceiver in their high density SiGe process,"
said Eric Broockman, chief executive officer of Alereon.
"SiGe BiCMOS technology is well suited to build cost effective
solutions for demanding UWB applications, and Jazz Semiconductor's
focus on wireless applications makes them an ideal partner," said Jim
Lansford, Alereon's CTO. "We're very pleased with Jazz's execution on
this project. They've met or exceeded all of the project milestones
and we're very happy with their performance."
"Jazz Semiconductor is proud to enable customers, like Alereon,
with technology and design platforms that contribute to successful
products in exciting new areas," said Paul Kempf, Jazz Semiconductor
CTO and CMO.
Alan Varghese, ABI Research's senior director of Semiconductor
Research added, "Ultrawideband's low power, wide bandwidth properties
address a multitude of new applications and this announcement is
evidence that the industry is making steady progress towards
development of the building blocks needed to deliver on the promise of
UWB and wireless USB."
Alereon took advantage of Jazz Semiconductor's focused approach to
enable rapid time to market for RF/Analog designs by using Jazz
Semiconductor's design platform, consisting of RF/Analog design kits,
silicon proven RF and device models, and supporting documentation.
About Alereon
Alereon, Inc., a UWB fabless semiconductor company, is developing
and deploying complete UWB solutions for personal area networking
applications that comply with the emerging MBOA and wireless USB
standards. Alereon's products promise to replace the complex tangle of
wiring used to interconnect today's consumer electronics, computer
peripheral, and mobile devices with high-bandwidth, low-power,
low-cost wireless links. Further information is available on the
company's website: www.alereon.com.
About Jazz Semiconductor
Jazz Semiconductor is an independent wafer foundry focused
primarily on specialty CMOS process technologies, including SiGe
BiCMOS and RFCMOS for the manufacture of highly integrated analog and
mixed-signal semiconductor devices. Jazz's executive offices and its
U.S wafer fabrication facilities are located in Newport Beach,
California. Jazz has expanded its wafer capacity in China through
manufacturing partnerships with Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
Corporation and Hua Hong NEC Electronics Co., Ltd. Contact Jazz
Semiconductor at www.jazzsemi.com.
Contact:
Alereon
Elizabeth Patrick, 512-345-4200 ext. 2155
elizabeth.patrick@alereon.com
or
Media Contact:
Greg Wise, 512-794-4716
gwise@webershandwick.com
or
Jazz Semiconductor
Jessica McNaughton, 949-435-8086
jessica.mcnaughton@jazzsemi.com
or
Media Contact:
Lauri Julian, 949-453-8080
lauri@lages.com
