Sibeam Raises Funding for Third-Generation WirelessHD Chips

Sibeam’s recent raising of $36.5 million will fund development of third-generation WirelessHD chips for mobile and data networking applications and possibly pave the way for an IPO, CEO John LeMoncheck told us. The new money, which follows $40 million raised in 2008, includes new investors in Lux Capital, Hatteras Funds, Best Buy and Cisco, the latter offering a breadth of product from Linksys routers and Flip video recorders to Scientific-Atlanta cable set-top boxes. The financing round began in mid-2009 and was completed in January, LeMoncheck said. LeMoncheck declined comment of whether Best Buy or Cisco got board seats, but said both are represented on Sibeam’s strategic advisory panel.

"On our standard plans” this would be the last funding round, “but these things move so fast that there are a lot good opportunities and we may take down more money before we really feel like wanting to be a public company,” LeMoncheck said. An IPO is the “next major fund-raising event in our life. But the challenges of being a public company take an awful lot of management bandwidth these days so we may take on some more private money. We'll have a nice running start with this amount."

The third-generation chips will be designed to draw “in the hundreds of milliwatts" of power against two watts in the second-generation ICs that will find their way this year into Sony, Toshiba and Vizio TVs and Monster Cable adapters, LeMoncheck said. Monster was expected to ship an adapter last fall (CED Oct 13 p1). The next-generation chips also will be bi-directional and capable of PHY rates up to 28 Gbps, vs. 6 Gbps in the first ICs. The second-generation SB9221 network processor and SB9211 RF receiver chipsets are ramping up production at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. using a 65-nanometer process. The new chips have a 300 MHZ processor/baseband clock speed, up from 160 MHZ in the first ICs, company officials said. The third-generation ICs are expected to arrive in 2011.

While Sony, Toshiba and Vizio have announced plans for TVs containing embedded WirelessHD technology, Panasonic and Best Buy haven’t finalized plans for products with new ICs. The WirelessHD transmitter dongle will retail for $149, but should drop below $100 “in the near future,” LeMoncheck said. Panasonic and Best Buy fielded the Z1 50-inch plasma TV and a Rocketfish wireless adapter with first-generation WirelessHD. Funai has demonstrated prototype flat-panel TVs containing the technology. And LG Electronics, which left the WirelessHD fold earlier this year for Amimon’s rival WHDI technology, may return, LeMoncheck said. LG shipped WirelessHD-equipped LH85 and LHX series LCD TVs last fall. “I can’t say anything directly, but I'm quite confident that LG is going to be part of the wirelessHD family” again, LeMoncheck said. LG officials weren’t available for comment Friday. Sibeam is also delivering the SB9220 network processor and SB9210 RF transmitter for AV receivers, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and media center PCs.

WirelessHD first- and second-generation ICs will co-exist this year as companies work through existing models, LeMoncheck said. “We'll continue to sell first generation this year, but the bulk of business is going to be gen 2. By the end of the year it will be all second generation.” WirelessHD chips are a building block for a company that may spread development into other categories and applications, LeMoncheck said. WirelessHD chips have millimeter wave antennas, including 32 on the second-generation ICs, down from 36 on earlier models.

"We are a CMOS modeling house as much as we are anything,” LeMoncheck said. “It’s our ability to do these very high-speed circuits in cheap CMOS that is our fundamental advantage. This WirelessHD market is an interesting place to start because there is an obvious need for high bandwidth and the 60 GHz spectrum was available. But there are a lot of different applications available not only around 60 GHz wireless, but in non-adjacent markets like automotive radar and security applications. I think we have the potential to get to multiple markets and be a multi-segmented larger semiconductor play as opposed to one interesting product line inside an organization.”