Wavesat Positioned for Growth Independent of 4G Technology Winner(s)

While many debate which flavor of 4G will prevail - WiMAX or LTE, mobile broadband semiconductor company Wavesat utilizes a flexible, multi-mode architecture approach to deliver "future-proof" 4G solutions. Interview with Raj Singh, CEO Wavesat.

Wavesat is a privately held, fabless, Montreal based, semiconductor company that has been shipping broadband wireless components for over three years.  The company received $11.7M in funding earlier this year and expects to be profitable by September 2009.  Wavesat has had several key design wins with several network equipment, device and circuit card OEMs, including NEC, Huawei, Asus, Aperto Networks, and Redline.  They also have close relationships with many carriers including SK Telecom, UQ Communications, Telecom Italia and Vodafone.  I recently chatted with CEO Raj Singh about the company's mission, direction, and strategy.

"We're keen to be thought of as a 4G semiconductor company," Raj said.  While agnostic as to which 4G technology ultimately wins, Wavesat plans to participate in the market lift-off of mobile broadband and is already doing so.  The key to the company's success is their programmable Wireless Air Interface silicon, which can support multiple OFDMA based 4G technologies (and perhaps HSPA) with different firmware. 

Wavesat's OD8500 BWA baseband chip is currently in field trials with WillCom in Japan for a 4G technology known as "XG-PHS." That Japanese mobile technology operates at 2.5GHz using 10MHz channels with 350Km/hour speeds- faster than Mobile WiMAX.  It will permit users to get broadband Internet access while riding "bullet trains" (AKA Shinkansen) in Japan.  The SAME CHIP also supports IEEE 802.16e and will be embedded in a small module within handheld consumer devices that are used in UQ Communications Mobile WiMAX network (also in Japan).


Wavesat WiMAX OD8500 chip


The OD8500 contains an embedded micro-processor and firmware (residing in instruction memory), which together implement all the protocol specific functions of the 3G+ and 4G technologies.  These functions include: frame processing, FEC, MIMO, beam forming, FFT for signal processing, etc.  An on-chip DSP based "crypto engine" handles encryption/security protocols such as: EAP, AES, and PKMv2. 

What about performance? Wavesat claims the chip can support raw data rates of 46.1M bit/sec on the DL and 11.7M bit/sec on the UL.  Adaptive modulation schemes, up to 256 QAM are supported.  In addition to the OD8500, Wavesat also provides reference designs for a WiMAX CPE station, a Mobile WiMAX Express card, and a Mobile WiMAX dongle form-factor.



Wavesat USB Dongle


Wavesat's flexible chip architecture has been very well received by OEMs, who are using the OD8500 to build a single (vendor programmable) device that will operate on many different BWA networks.  Here are some examples:
 

Main Benefit: The OEM realizes economies of scale by using the same Air Interface component in multiple broadband wireless markets. 

What's the extra cost for programmability? Surprisingly, there is only a 1% penalty in terms of die size/chip area compared with a hard wired single protocol BWA chip, according to Raj. 

Additional benefit: There's another important advantage of programmability- fine grained idle power management and control.  This involves sensing any chip element/cell not in use and clocking it to a lower rate gracefully, while maintaining the state machine.  This is in sharp contrast to a hard-wired, pipelined chip which requires more circuitry to manage the power budget.  That is crucially important to prolonged battery life in handheld devices which facilitates greater mobility.

The HSPA conundrum: 3G HSPA/HSPDA is not OFDMA based.  Should it be supported on-chip and if so, how? Raj believes that HSPA has to be implemented in hand held devices for LTE to be successful.  That's because LTE will not replace 3G/HSPA overnight.  When LTE starts to be deployed- perhaps in 2 years- Wavesat will have a different firmware version of their OD8500 which will support LTE and HSPA.

Currently, SK Telecom sells devices which support WiBro and HSPA.  Those devices will have a Wavesat chip for WiBro and a Qualcom chip for HSPA.  Mobile device functions like handover, roaming, and authentication are implemented in OD8500 firmware - for both directions of transition (HSPA to WiBro and vice-versa).  When a mobile device moves between these two networks a new connection is made and the user is authenticated, before the existing connection is broken.  The Wavesat chip handles this "make before break" functionality.

Market segments: Raj sees several types of equipment using Wavesat's Programmable Air Interface components:

- Embedded CPE: machine-to-machine, digital game players, hand held cameras
- Notebooks, Netbooks, Dongles: for mobile broadband Internet access
- Fixed access CPE: external modems for wireless broadband (e.g.  Reliance and Tata in India; PT Harrif in Indonesia)

New Business Models for Broadband Wireless IC Companies:

"A BWA semiconductor company that doesn't talk to the carriers won't be successful.  It's the only business model that works," states Mr.  Singh.  The carriers should be perceived as the end customer for the IC company, according to Raj.  The OEM has become the systems integrator of the technology specified by the carrier and implemented by the chip company.  The IC company's goal should be to evangelize their proprietary technology to the wireless carrier who will in turn provide feedback about desirable future features and also recommend OEMs.  For example, UQ Communications in Japan recommended NEC and In Frontier to Wavesat after hearing about the advantages of their programmable silicon.

Outlook for Mobile WiMAX, MIDs, and Smart Phones

Raj believes that Mobile WiMAX will happen, independent of WiMAX MIDs being successful.  "Mobile WiMAX provides broadband wireless everywhere," according to Mr.  Singh.  He correctly observes that laptops with embedded WiFi are used extensively in developed countries- at home and at hot spots.  This has given users the experience and desire to go on line anywhere.  Netbooks will accelerate this trend. 

But 3G does NOT provide for a very good Internet experience, whereas Mobile WiMAX does.  Realizing this dynamic, Telecom Italia is giving their customers a free netbook with embedded Mobile WiMAX capability in hopes of stimulating the market.  Acer and other Taiwanese notebook vendors have announced integrated Mobile WiMAX adapters in their products.  And, of course, this is Intel's main mission for Mobile WiMAX- to get it embedded into notebooks and sub- notebook/netbook PCs.

Can Mobile WiMAX thrive without MIDs?  Raj thinks so.  He says MIDs are NOT a pre-requisite for Mobile WiMAX's success.  "In these recessionary times, consumers may be reluctant to spend discretionary funds on new gadgets," Raj stated and we agree!

WiMAX Smart Phones?  They are a small market near term, says Mr.  Singh.  "Mobile WiMAX chip costs would need to come down dramatically to get the WiMAX Smart Phone market to ramp," Raj stated.  To stimulate demand for such handheld devices they must be attractively priced.  But the device cost can only come down if the associated component costs drop significantly (as a result of increased systems integration on chip).

Conclusion: Wavesat seems to be very well positioned to adapt to whatever the market might bring for 3G+ or 4G wireless broadband.  The flexibility of their programmable Air Interface chip architecture serves to "future proof" many BWA terminal designs.  This is because the same printed circuit card can be used for multiple broadband wireless networks- now and in the future.



 

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 in Equipment  | Permalink |  Comments (0)