Altair Semiconductor has announced the sampling of its new FourGee-1160 and FourGee-1150 Category-1 and Category-0 chipsets respectively, paving the way for many IoT applications to deploy commercially as soon as later this year.
The company expects that this product will catalyse billions of dollars in spending by the M2M and IoT industry. Top-tier carriers, device makers and module vendors have shifted gears in recent months in preparation for an aggressive introduction of numerous “smart” IoT applications once LTE Category-1 (CAT-1) and Category-0 (CAT-0) chipsets become available.
CAT-1 and CAT-0 are lower speed and power versions of the LTE standard which dramatically extend the addressable market for carriers and chip makers alike. They introduce new IoT targeted features, extend battery operation and lower the cost of adding LTE connectivity.
“While chipsets supporting these lower categories are essential for numerous applications, including wearable devices, smart home and smart metering, there has been an industry development gap that we had anticipated two years ago,” said Eran Eshed, co-founder and vice president of marketing and business development at Altair. “We’ve worked hard to address this gap by being first to market with true CAT-1 and 0 chipsets featuring a power/size/cost combination that is a massive game-changer.”
Key features and benefits of the new chipsets include:
- Extremely low power consumption enabling between weeks and years of operation, based on the use case scenario
- Highly integrated chipset with embedded power management and direct battery connection
- Embedded MCU subsystem with virtualised, customisable application layer and a robust security framework
- Rich set of host, peripheral and sensor interfaces typical to IoT and M2M applications
- Supports VoLTE, OTDOA positioning and seamless integration with industry standard GPS and A-GNSS chipsets
- SDR-based, software upgradeable to support 3GPP Release 12 and 13 features
- Miniature footprint, available in both BGA package and as bumped dies
“The traction we have been receiving for this chipset is overwhelming, and tells us how strong the need is in the market for such a solution. We have signed up more than a handful of tier-1 customers before even sampling the chip; this is very unusual in our industry,” added Eshed.
Altair has created disruption in the past by being the first company to launch and deploy a low-cost single mode LTE chipset in the market, and enabling device makers to offer LTE-powered products at a significant discount over multimode (3G/LTE) devices. Altair has shipped millions of chipsets to date, deployed commercially on carrier networks such as Verizon Wireless, Softbank, China Mobile and Megafone.
