Analysis: Inside Broadcom's bid for Beceem

Rick Merritt, EETimes
10/13/2010 9:03 AM EDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Beceem Communications has a solid team and solid financials, but not exactly the right product to get Broadcom Corp. into mainstream LTE markets quickly. But given Broadcom belief the 4G technology won't be widespread in handsets until at least 2015, the company has plenty of time to start new integrated designs that are the hallmark of its silicon strategy.

Broadcom bid $316 million to acquire Beceem which sells WiMax handset chips and has a multimode WiMax and LTE chip in development scheduled to sample early next year. That chip, the BCS500, will be in production in late 2011, according to an S-1 Beceem filed recently in an aborted plan to go public.

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