Norcross Division of ANADIGICS, a Top Wireless LAN Supplier to Intel, Has GEDC Roots

Dave Cresci, senior product marketing manager with ANADIGICS Wireless LAN Center of Excellence in Norcross, Ga., holds a 6-inch InGaP HBT wafer manufactured by ANADIGICS.

by Rick Robinson

ATLANTA -- The ANADIGICS Wireless LAN Center of Excellence in Norcross, Ga. designs, markets and sells radio frequency (RF) front-end integrated circuits for the 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN market.

It is a successful operation. Today its chips, fabricated in an advanced InGaP HBT process at the ANADIGICS headquarters in Warren, NJ, form a vital part of Intel Corp.'s Centrino wireless local area network (LAN) system found in many laptop computers.

"ANADIGICS has become a market leader in 802.11a/b/g WLAN power amplifiers and front ends," says David Cresci, senior product marketing manager with ANADIGICS Wireless LAN Center of Excellence in Norcross. "This achievement is largely attributable to our multi-generational success on Intel's Centrino platform for WiFi-based notebook PCs."

While the Norcross operation is a unit of New Jersey-based ANADIGICS Inc., its roots lead back to the Georgia Institute of Technology and to the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), a center for mixed-signal IC research and development at Georgia Tech.

ANADIGICS' Norcross center began life as RF Solutions Inc., a consulting and design company started by a Georgia Tech team that included GEDC director Joy Laskar and graduate students of the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). RF Solutions also received significant aid from the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a Georgia Tech-based business incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch new companies

"The ANADIGICS Wireless LAN Center of Excellence is a GEDC spin-off in many ways," says Laskar, who is also Joseph M. Pettit Professor in Electronics in ECE. "It grew out of some of the same research and personnel that have been at the core of the Georgia Electronic Design Center."

Besides being the first fabless semiconductor company in Atlanta, RF Solutions was connected to the start of two other operations, Laskar adds. Several RF Solutions transceiver designers went on to form a design center for Israel-based Metalink. And an RF Solutions founder started FCI Inc., now one of Korea's fastest-growing wireless IC companies. "The connection between Korea-based FCI Inc. and the Georgia Electronic Design Center was a major reason that Samsung wound up coming to Atlanta," Laskar says.

GEDC, which in 2003 supplanted a previous organization named Yamacraw, is a state-sponsored effort that has grown swiftly to become the nation's largest university-based mixed-signal research effort. It performs research in new communications technology for wireless/RF, wired/copper fiber channel and sensor applications.

In late 2005 GEDC completed research-partnership agreements with Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. and Pirelli North America Inc. GEDC now has 20 research professors, more than 150 graduate students, 41 member companies and federal agency partners, and conducts some $10 million in research annually.

RF Solutions was started in December 1997 by Laskar, four graduate students from his Microwave Applications Group (MAG) within ECE. Cresci, one of the four founding graduate students, recalls that during the first two years the RF Solutions team focused on consulting activities while it developed a specific product-development plan that could attract investors.

"The idea was to spend some time getting our feet wet, becoming properly networked within the local technology industry before going out for venture money," recalls Cresci, who holds a Georgia Tech masters degree in electrical engineering.

Working with ATDC, RF Solutions received seed funding in March 2000, mostly from Atlanta-area venture capital groups. The growing company initially centered its business plan on the broadband wireless access market, a precursor of today's WiMAX, a technology championed by Intel that uses wireless infrastructure to challenge cable and DSL.

RF Solutions started making transceivers and power amplifiers for the fixed broadband wireless market, but soon realized that lack of a unified standard significantly stalled market growth.

"There really wasn't one leader in the industry," Cresci says. "Today with WiMAX you have Intel leading the charge, ultimately creating a uniform spec that everyone can follow."

After a second funding round, the young semiconductor company shifted to the burgeoning wireless LAN market in March 2001. In turned out to be a good decision, Cresci says, because the high-volume market opportunity available in wireless LAN was perfect for driving the revenue growth of a young semiconductor company.

RF Solutions achieved significant growth in 2001-2002 as its venture-funded product development translated into growing chip sales. The company expanded its customer base and took on additional wireless LAN partners, ultimately leading to its acquisition by ANADIGICS in April 2003.

"From a market perspective the RF semiconductor business for WLAN was growing extremely competitive in 2003 and 2004," Cresci says. "The combination of RF Solutions' WLAN IC design expertise and ANADIGICS' industry-leading manufacturing capabilities created the perfect blend for capturing a lead market share position."

Today, as the ANADIGICS Wireless LAN Center of Excellence, the former RF Solutions operation has 15 employees who design and market the semiconductor chips that are used in the front end of multiple Intel Centrino wireless LAN platforms.

"What once was a technology start-up out of MAG, GEDC and ATDC," Cresci says, "is now a critical element in driving ANADIGICS' success in the wireless LAN industry."