The 2-decade future of Sequans Communications involves an finish because it’s being acquired by Renesas Electronics. Throughout this era, the Paris, France-based provider of communication chips went by a near-death expertise after the collapse of the WiMax market and turbulence that adopted when it began reinventing itself within the mobile IoT market.
It’s in all probability no coincidence {that a} main MCU provider is buying Sequans; the corporate has been eyeing shut tie-ups with MCU corporations that primarily drive IoT designs. It even entered a partnership with STMicroelectronics just a few years in the past.
Determine 1 Sequans eyed MCU as a elementary constructing block subsequent to its connectivity chips for mobile IoT.
Renesas has steadily been increasing its semiconductors portfolio by adopting the “development by acquisition” mannequin pioneered by networking big Cisco in the course of the Nineteen Nineties. Now, it goals to develop into mobile IoT to meet the demand for good meters, asset monitoring programs, good properties, good cities, linked autos, fixed-wireless entry networks, and cellular computing gadgets.
It’s price mentioning right here that the 2 corporations have been working intently since 2020 to create options that mix embedded processors and analog front-end merchandise of Renesas with Sequans’ wi-fi chipsets for enormous IoT and broadband IoT purposes. Georges Karam, founder and CEO of Sequans, firmly believes in assimilating 5G/4G connectivity chips into a bigger MCU ecosystem to speed up the adoption of mobile IoT.
Determine 2 Alcatel veteran Georges Karam based Sequans Communications in 2003.
From WiMAX to mobile IoT
Georges Karam and a group of communication know-how specialists from Alcatel and Pacific Broadband based Sequans as a chip firm to handle the WiMAX market in 2003. By 2011, when the corporate went public, it had established itself as a WiMAX market chief. After which, the WiMAX know-how bubble burst, and the 4G commonplace based mostly on the Lengthy Time period Evolution (LTE) mobile know-how emerged as a transparent winner.
“We turned a brand new startup another time with no product and no market,” Karam advised EE Instances. At the moment, the corporate determined to focus squarely on the LTE-only single modem chip market. Furthermore, Sequans selected to avoid the smartphone market and as a substitute started supplying single-mode LTE-only modem chips for information gadgets like house routers, moveable routers, and tablets.
On reflection, that was an astute transfer. A lot bigger gamers—Broadcom, Renesas Cellular, and ST-Ericsson—couldn’t compete with Qualcomm within the multi-mode LTE smartphone market and had been compelled to desert the modem enterprise altogether. Nonetheless, Sequans troubles didn’t finish there because the mobile IoT market continued to evolve.
First, low-power extensive space (LWPA) applied sciences like LoRa, Sigfox, Ingenu, and others started to eye the IoT market through the use of unlicensed frequencies. Then, the mobile trade hit again with new IoT requirements reminiscent of Cat-0, Cat-M1/Cat-M/LTE-M, and NB-IoT/Cat-M2. And Sequans was sure to maintain investing within the new iterations of mobile IoT requirements to maintain its lead available in the market.
There have been breakthroughs as properly. In 2014, Sequans launched the world’s first IoT-optimized Class 1 (Cat 1) chipset, Calliope. Subsequent, in 2016, it unveiled Monarch, the world’s first LTE-M/NB-IoT single-chip answer based mostly on the 3GPP Launch 13 narrowband commonplace.
Determine 3 Monarch was the primary single-chip answer for LTE-based IoT designs. Supply: Sequans
Monarch turned the trade’s go-to chip for LTE-based IoT options. Subsequent, its follow-up, Monarch 2, included embedded safety in addition to an built-in MCU with sensor-hub mode and embedded voice processor.
The small Qualcomm gone
“We see ourselves as a ‘small Qualcomm’” within the mobile IoT market,” Karam advised EE Instances again in 2019. “In fact, there’s an enormous distinction between the scale of our companies, however we all know the know-how, and we perceive the way to play within the mobile market as a lot as Qualcomm does.”
Like Qualcomm, Sequans has displayed resilience whereas weathering one know-how storm after one other. And being a small Qualcomm, it was clever sufficient to not foray into the smartphone LTE market dominated by the large Qualcomm.
Ultimately, Sequans nearly turned synonymous with silicon for mobile IoT. Right here, the excessive barrier to entry into the mobile IoT enterprise performed to Sequans’ benefit, and it’s now within the secure palms of Renesas. Simply when the growth on the intersection of 5G and IoT is in sight, deep pockets of Renesas may assist Sequans silicon strengthen lead within the large IoT purposes like smart-home programs in addition to in broadband IoT serving high-end industrial purposes.
In the meantime, by buying this mobile IoT pioneer, Renesas additional cements its path to changing into a semiconductor trade big. And, whereas the Japanese semiconductor outfit snaps this battle-hardened firm, it additionally will get maintain of helpful design expertise in communications silicon.
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