Cupertino, CA-based Sequans Communications and Quebec-based Wavesat each unveiled a chip set and a mini-PCI card reference kit designed to accelerate WiMax development and deployment, and both are doing so a week after initiating WiMax certification testing. Wavesat said its design is the first mini-PCI card design and that the company is targeting Asian ODMs. They, in turn, would accelerate the volume of WiMax CPE and push costs down. The reference kit joins Wavesat's DM256 baseband chip with an RF Magic front end for 3.5 GHz operation, with the company supporting the MAC layer in software. Wavesat is also working with SiGe Semiconductor for an RF front end. The kit will support both time-division duplex and half-frequency-division duplex operation. Wavesat has VCom, Edom and WaveIP as customers.

Sequans made an entrance with the SQN2010 and SQN1010 baseband-plus-MAC chips for basestations and CPE. The chips are made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing in its 0.13 micron CMOS process and are an ARM926 processor and the baseband processing. The SQN2010 basestation chip adds another ARM926 for customer applications. RF front-end partners include Sierra Monolithics and RF Magic. The 2010 is a 31x31mm BGA package and consumes between 1.5 and 2.5 watts. The 1010 is a 23x23mm BGA and consumes 1 to 2 watts. Sequans says Airspan and Cambridge Broadband are among its customers. The chips from both Wavesat and Sequans sell for $35 each in quantities of 10,000. The two companies have plans for 802.16e.

For more on Sequans and Wavesat WiMax plans:
- see Patrick Mannion's commsdesigns report