Wireless LAN market to become a little more crowded with arrival of Ottawa firm

Semiconductor companies developing products for the wireless LAN market will soon have a new competitor nipping at their heels. Ottawa-based IceFyre Semiconductor plans to use US$12 million in venture capital financing to launch a new low-power chipset for the 5 GHz wireless LAN market next year. The main selling features of the OFDM-based chip, executives believe, is its ability to offer higher data throughput rates than competing standards, while consuming less power. Power capabilities, battery life and mobility issues – as well as the high cost and high power consumption associated with OFDM – have been major concerns for customers. They’ve also been the driving force behind IceFyre’s research, says company president and CEO Dan Mathers. The company has spent much of the past six months coming up with a solution that he says sets IceFyre apart from the other players in the space. And Mathers explains that much of the interest in IceFyre’s chip sets is tied to the success of systems operating in the 2.4 GHz band. Now that companies using this technology have seen it operate, they want higher performance. The same needs will need to be met when customers eventually migrate to products operating the 5 GHz frequency range where faster speeds can be attained. "So low power is a very compelling story and we will have the lowest power (chipset) on the market when we announce our products sometime next year," he told Report on Wireless. Preparing for commercial launch The wireless LAN market is set to explode over the next couple of years as systems mature and become more widely deployed. According to Cahners In-Stat Group, the entire wireless market will grow from 1999 levels of US$624 million to about US$3 billion in 2002. The market potential is impressive, but so is the competition. Several American and other foreign companies are competing in this space including Calgary-based Wi-LAN Inc, which has been a front runner advocating the use of OFDM-based products. Wi-LAN is working with Phillips Semiconductor to produce an OFDM chip in the 5 GHz range. While Mathers isn’t willing to discuss the number of potential OEM agreements his company expects to finalize, he’s confident that IceFyre will be a formidable competitor in this growing market. "We’re talking to most of the major players in the (market) … but by the time we launch and get into volume production, we hope to have everyone (as a customer)." He adds that the US$12 million it recently acquired in first-round financing will be used to build all parts of the business including sales and marketing. But IceFyre is also ensuring that it executes on all parts of its strategy and it is doing that through a strong push for fundamentals. "What separates the winners from the losers is the ability to execute, particularly in the chip business," Mathers states. "So basically we have the technology, we have a team that is very experienced in building a successful business, and that’s going to lead to us owning this market." The five founders of IceFyre aren’t strangers to this area of research. The executives all worked at Philsar Semiconductor on a low-power chip based on the Bluetooth wireless networking standard.

Wireless LAN market to become a little more crowded with arrival of Ottawa firm

News | 08/21/2001 4:00 am EDT

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