BitWave

BitWave Semiconductor Inc. operated as a fabless semiconductor company, established in 2003 with a focus on developing software-defined transceiver technology. The firm secured $13 million in venture funding in its initial stages and accumulated a total of $25.7 million over five funding rounds, including a Series A round in January 2004 and a final round in November 2009. Investors included notable firms such as TVM Capital, Apex Venture Partners, and Western Technology Investment.

The company's core product was the "Softransceiver," a single CMOS RFIC chip engineered to function across multiple bands and communication protocols. This device was designed to be programmable, allowing for real-time adjustments to its operating characteristics, such as frequency, bandwidth, and linearity, via software commands. The Softransceiver aimed to replace the multiple fixed transceivers found in mobile devices, thereby offering a more streamlined and cost-effective solution for manufacturers of handsets, femto-cells, and datacards. Its tunable frequency range was expected to be between 700 MHz and 4.2 GHz, supporting a variety of wireless standards including UMTS, CDMA2K, iDen, and 802.11b/g.

The business model centered on supplying these programmable transceivers to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the mobile industry, with a stated goal of achieving performance on par with or better than fixed-function transceivers. By enabling a single radio to operate on diverse networks, BitWave intended to provide greater flexibility for both device manufacturers and network operators. The company announced its technology in late 2005 and planned for customer sampling to begin in the summer of 2006.

There is no public record of the company's founders. The executive team included Douglas Shute as CEO and Geoff Dawe as CTO. In 2008, BitWave was acquired by CEVA, a leading licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies, as part of CEVA's strategy to expand its IP portfolio. CEVA itself has been an active player in the market, later acquiring RivieraWaves in 2014 to bolster its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities and selling its Intrinsix subsidiary to Cadence in 2023 to refocus on its core IP business.

Keywords: BitWave Semiconductor, fabless semiconductor, RF transceiver, software-defined radio, CMOS RFIC, multi-band, multi-protocol, wireless communication, mobile devices, handset market, femto-cell, datacard, Softransceiver, programmable transceiver, Douglas Shute, Geoff Dawe, CEVA acquisition, wireless IP, venture capital, TVM Capital, Apex Venture Partners