Alereon Announces $3 Million Strategic Investment From SK Telecom
Alereon, Inc., the Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology leader for WiMedia and Certified Wireless USB applications, today announced it has received a $3 million investment from SK Telecom. SK Telecom is the second major Korean investor in Alereon, following Samsung Ventures’ investment in the fourth quarter 2006.
Eric Broockman, CEO of Alereon, commented, “I believe this commitment from SK Telecom is strong evidence that our technology, along with our ability to bring added value to our strategic partners, is capturing the attention of even the most demanding investors. The SK Telecom investment is consistent with our strategy to work closely with established market leaders in the mobile handset space worldwide.”
Alereon’s AL5000 family chipset — the AL5100 RF transceiver and the AL5300 BaseBand Processor (BBP) plus Media Access Controller (MAC) — is the only Certified Wireless USB chipset that meets frequency spectrum requirements worldwide, including the upper band groups required in Korea, Japan and China.
SK Telecom intends to use UWB technology as a standardized method of providing high-speed mobile phone services to customers, expanding their options for entertainment content delivery to their mobile devices. Users will be able to seamlessly communicate directly with other mobile users, with kiosks and with their own entertainment devices enjoying the benefits of having their content wherever they want, whenever they want.
“This investment is consistent with our vision that UWB and Wireless USB will be important in mobile and consumer electronic products with significant volume production,” said an investment manager at SK Telecom. “SK Telecom has conducted an in-depth analysis of many UWB companies and chose to invest in Alereon as they represent the ideal balance of leading products and product plans to address many of our future implementations of Wireless USB and UWB in mobile handsets, especially in Korea and China.”
Mr. Broockman concluded, “In addition to the initial investment, we believe we are well prepared to collaborate with SK Telecom for their specific application needs. We look forward to engaging with SK Telecom to develop UWB-related products for mobile applications in Korea and China.”
About Alereon, Inc.
Alereon, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company using revolutionary ultrawideband (UWB) radio technology to develop high-bandwidth, low-power, low-cost Wireless USB and WiMedia UWB chipsets that are ideal for today’s portable products, like digital cameras, mp3 players and cell phones. Our mission is to replace the complex tangle of wires that interconnect today’s electronic devices with wireless links. For more information, visit http://www.alereon.com
About SK Telecom
SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670) is the top wireless communication provider in Korea, where it has over 22 million subscribers and more than 50% of the total market. Established in 1984, the company reached KRW 11.28 trillion in revenue in 2007. SK Telecom was the first to launch and commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2001x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks, and currently provides cellular, wireless Internet, mobile media, global roaming services and more. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com or email press@sktelecom.com.