SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 6, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Beceem Communications, a leading provider of chipsets for Mobile WiMAX technology, today announced that it has received a substantial investment from Intel Capital, the venture capital investment arm for Intel Corporation. The two companies will also work together to strengthen the Mobile WiMAX ecosystem and ensure that leading operators will have high-performance terminal solutions available to demonstrate the significant advantages of Mobile WiMAX.
"This collaboration is aimed to accelerate the trial and deployment of mobile WiMAX networks and establish Mobile WiMAX as the highest performance, most spectrally efficient wireless broadband technology available," said Shahin Hedayat, CEO & Co-founder of Beceem. "The success of WiMAX as technology of choice for the Mobile Broadband market creates mutual benefits for both companies."
"The collaboration with Beceem underscores Intel's philosophy that the early availability of high performance chipset solutions is important for the adoption of Mobile WiMAX by operators," said Sriram Viswanathan, VP and managing director of Intel Capital. "This investment from Intel Capital underscores our commitment to a vibrant ecosystem that has multiple product sources at all levels."
Beceem has been a key contributor to the IEEE 802.16e standards effort and has also been instrumental in defining the first Mobile WiMAX profile for the WiMAX Forum(tm). The company has demonstrated its prototype chipsets to leading telecom equipment manufacturers that are developing and deploying Mobile WiMAX solutions, and has announced commercial availability of its Mobile WiMAX terminal chipset.
About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel's venture capital organization, makes equity investments and strategic acquisitions to stimulate technology growth and advance how people work and live. Intel Capital's mission is to find and support innovative companies worldwide. It invests in technology companies targeting digital entertainment, enterprise computing, networking and communications, software development and manufacturing.
Created in 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$4 billion in approximately 1,000 companies in more than 30 countries through 2005. During this time, about 160 portfolio companies have been acquired by other companies and another 150 have gone public on various exchanges around the world. Intel Capital currently employs investment managers in about 25 countries worldwide. In 2005, Intel Capital invested about US$265 million in about 140 deals, with approximately 60 percent of dollars invested outside the U.S. For more information, visit www.intelcapital.com.
About Beceem Communications
Beceem Communications Inc. was founded in October 2003 with the goal of building a wireless technology company offering semiconductor solutions for the wireless broadband market. Beceem is the leading supplier of chipsets for the recently ratified, IEEE 802.16e standard on which Mobile WiMAX is based. The company's solutions target both base station and subscriber terminal applications. For more information, visit www.beceem.com.
"WiMAX Forum(tm)" is a trademark of the WiMAX Forum(tm). Other third-party trademarks contained in this document are the property of their respective owners.
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