Altair Semiconductor Employs Sonics' NoC to Integrate Baseband IC of ALT1250 IoT LTE Chipset

San Jose, Calif. – May 30, 2017 – Sonics, Inc., the world’s foremost supplier of on-chip network (NoC) and power management technologies and services, today announced that Altair Semiconductor, a Sony company, used Sonics’ NoC as the integration fabric for the baseband IC of its new ALT1250, which is the most integrated LTE CAT-M1 and NB1 chipset available. The ALT1250 integrates an LTE baseband processor, RF transceiver, PMU, memory, PAs, filters and antenna switch, a GNSS and a cellular based location engine, as well as an IoT-optimized security framework. An ALT1250-based design requires only a few external components. This enables miniature module sizes of smaller than 100mm2 with standard low-cost PCB technology.

“Altair has been using Sonics’ NoCs for several years and the ALT1250 is their latest design to leverage our interconnect IP technology to meet demanding performance requirements,” said Grant Pierce, CEO of Sonics. “We’re pleased that our NoC solutions have made significant contributions to the successful development of this innovative IoT chipset product at Altair.”

“We trust Sonics because it provides the best total system solution and product support available for on-chip networks,” said Eli Zyss, vice president of silicon design at Altair Semiconductor. “Sonics’ highly configurable interconnect IP continues to deliver the capabilities we need to exceed our aggressive power and performance goals.”

Cellular IoT Features and Performance at LPWA Price Point

The ALT1250 incorporates Altair’s OneSKU™ RF technology, which enables multiple LTE band combinations with a single hardware design. The chipset features ultra-low power consumption in a variety of modes, including 3GPP PSM and eDRX, enabling more than 15 years of battery life.

The ALT1250 chipset is designed to operate with rechargeable Li-ion and prime batteries. The chipset includes the ALT1250 IC for baseband, RF, GNSS and security, and its companion RF Front End IC, the ALT1910. The ALT1250 features a rich set of host, peripheral and sensor interfaces, making it ideal for integration in IoT devices including wearables, tracking devices, smart city management, utilities, digital signs, and many more.

About Altair Semiconductor

Altair Semiconductor is a leading provider of LTE chipsets. Altair’s portfolio covers the complete spectrum of cellular 4G market needs, from supercharged video-centric applications all the way to ultra-low power, low cost IoT and M2M. Altair has shipped millions of LTE chipsets to date, commercially deployed on the world’s most advanced LTE networks including Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Softbank and KT (Korea Telecom). The company’s customer roster includes some of the world’s leading OEMs and ODMs, such as Telit, Sierra Wireless, WNC and Gemtek, as well as the majority of Asian ODMs developing LTE products for global markets.

About Sonics, Inc.
Sonics, Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) is the trusted leader in on-chip network (NoC) and power-management technologies used by the world’s top semiconductor and electronics product companies, including Broadcom®, Intel®, Marvell®, MediaTek, and Microchip®. Sonics was the first company to develop and commercialize NoCs, accelerating volume production of complex systems-on-chip (SoC) that contain multiple processor cores. Based on the ICE-Grain™ Power Architecture, Sonics’ ICE-G1™ is the industry’s first complete Energy Processing Unit (EPU), which enables rapid development of SoC power management subsystems. Sonics is also a catalyst for ongoing discussions about design methodology change via the Agile IC Methodology LinkedIn group. Sonics holds approximately 150 patent properties supporting customer products that have shipped more than four billion SoCs. For more information, visit sonicsinc.com.