Alereon, a fabless semiconductor company developing wireless solutions for the WiMedia Ultrawideband (UWB) and Certified Wireless USB (W-USB) markets, announced the closing of $20 million in a Series B financing. The funding was secured from a group of long-time investors led by Austin Ventures, Centennial Ventures and Pharos Capital Group.

Article Tools

• 

"With upcoming product announcements and distribution channels in place, Alereon is ready to further their position as a leader in the UWB market," said Dale LeFebvre, a partner at Pharos Capital Group. "We are looking forward to continuing to back Alereon as they continue their transition from strong wireless start-up to industry leader."

"With the recent announcement of our first products, we are now in position to move beyond the product development phase and into the production phase," said Eric Broockman, Alereon CEO. "This funding enables us to strengthen our leadership in both domestic and international ultrawideband (UWB) markets. Alereon was the world's first UWB company to demonstrate a WiMedia and Certified Wireless USB PHY chipset operating at 480 Mbps in October of 2004. Now we are first to sample a production PHY product. Alereon intends to use this capital to ramp production on the first generation AL4000 UWB family as well as to develop our second-generation chipset."

Alereon recently announced the availability of the initial members of the AL4000 family, the AL4000 PHY chipset, consisting of the AL4100 Ultrawideband Analog Front End (AFE), the AL4200 Ultrawideband BaseBand Processor (BBP) and the integrated AL4300 Wireless USB Media Access Controller and BaseBand Processor (MAC/BBP).