RF Magic was founded in July 2000 to be “a global leader in consumer electronics RFICs.” The company has secured over $15 million in funding from CMEA Ventures, Granite Ventures, Anthem Venture Partners, and Revolution Ventures. Existing seed investors also participated. RF Magic plans to raise around $15M in additional funding in the next 3-6 months, which should enable the company to reach cash flow positive operation. RF Magic has roughly 50 employees.

The company claims that its technology will “take RFICs beyond building blocks to true system level solutions that compliment the programmable baseband ICs that are becoming standard in devices that deliver data, voice, video, and the Internet.” RF Magic’s founding team worked together for many years before the company’s inception creating various designs, including “worlds firsts” in direct broadcast satellite and digital cable.

RF Magic is developing RFICs for multiple high volume consumer RF markets that require increasingly complex multi-use, multi-service, and multi-function SOC RFICs. In its selected markets, the company has multi-generation product roadmaps developed in partnership with its customers. RF Magic believes that it can supply the lowest cost production ready reference designs as part of the deliverables on every product it offers.

RF Magic’s initial products are targeted at the 2 to 6 GHz frequency bands for broadband access. The first product is a 1.8-6 GHz multi-band radio chipset for worldwide broadband fixed wireless access (FWA) service. Multi-band capability allows equipment makers to use a common radio design for multiple frequency bands, minimizing their overall cost for many product offerings. The multi-band range covers the PCS band at 1.8 GHz, extends through all 2 GHz bands (WCS, ISM, ITFS, MMDS), includes ETSI bands across the 3 GHz spectrum, and covers domestic and international UNII bands from 5 GHz to 6 GHz.

Both the RF2000 transmitter and RF3000 receiver are dual conversion RFICs with fully integrated VCOs and synthesizers. The devices integrate multiple VCOs, LNAs, and Amplifiers over a range of frequencies to cover all fixed service and unlicensed bands between 1.8GHz and 6GHz. The 2-chip solution supports modulation rates up to 64 QAM for both TDD and FDD radios, and is being used in OFDM, OFDMA, and single carrier systems. Applicable standards for the chipset include the recently released 802.16a specification, as well as 802.11a/b/g in outdoor applications.

The company offers a complete radio design that is production-ready, enabling fast development of low-cost FWA consumer products. The chipset is in volume production and is already in field deployments of broadband wireless equipment manufacturers, including Airspan Networks.

RF Magic is engaged with foundries in 3 continents. In the USA, RF Magic works with Jazz Semiconductor, a foundry spin-off from Conexant. In Europe, RF Magic has just taped out it most recent product in an IDM strategic partner fab. In Asia, RF Magic is qualifying a new foundry partnership.

Although the RFIC space is becoming increasingly crowded, RF Magic has a very specific RF focus and expertise applied “horizontally” across multiple markets versus, for example, RF and baseband product offerings in a vertical market focus (say 802.11). This allows the company to focus on RF expertise, not the digital/software IC environment. The company claims to have an RFIC team that surpasses, in both capability and size, the RF teams in many large IDMs. RF Magic also has a technology agnostic team.

In the broadband wireless access (BWA) market that uses the RF2000-RF3000 1.8-6 GHz multi-band radio chipset, the competition is discrete components, according to RF Magic. Leading semiconductor houses and consumer electronics manufacturers are increasingly turning to RF Magic as their preferred partner for RFICs, according to the company. RF Magic has multiple design wins with multiple RFIC products that are now ramping in production.

Mark Foley, co-founder, CEO, and president (previously held senior marketing and engineering positions at Conexant and ComStream)

Dale Hancock, co-founder, CTO and VP of Engineering (previously led RF Systems Engineering at Conexant and ComStream)

Stephen Blake, VP of Business Development (previouslyVP of Marketing for Consumer Products at Conexant)

Douglas Campbell, VP of Marketing & Sales (previously GM and VP of Business Development, Marketing, and Sales at Triton Network Systems)

Hod Finkelstein, VP of Operations (previously Director of Manufacturing and IP at Mellanox)

Ken Mendoza, Controller (previously Controller for RSF Technology)

Bert Fransis, Director of RFIC Engineering (previously worked at Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, PCSI, and Conexant)

Grant Hulse, Director of Product Marketing (previously managing director of all U.S. operations for NewLogic, a Bluetooth company)