On its semiconductor fab side, Celeritek is a Galium Arsenide Power Amplifier company. More specifically, it is a company that carves a niche out in the L and EHF band microwave frequency market. These frequencies are central to the new PCS systems that are coming into being. The new DECT cordless phone standard in Europe, the PCS (personal communications service) licenses in the US, and the MMDS, LMDS systems that will be licensed in the US, all use GaAs products built by CLTK. GaAs companies such as VTSS, ANAD, TQNT, do not seriously overlap with CLTKs niche: L-Band PCS and EHF (28-40 GHz) power amplifiers (PA). For the technically curious, the PA transmits the radio signal from the handset or the base station. This device needs to be very carefully designed because it determines the size of the battery and a good portion of the handset circuits. The device has to have a very high efficiency in converting the battery power into microwave radiation. It must also exhibit very demanding electronic operating characteristics so that the radio conforms to the standard to which it is licensed. Unlike conventional cellular that uses 800/900 MHz, and almost universally uses a single PA standard, the 1.7-2.4 GHz PCS band has about a dozen differing power amplifier standards. Celeritek makes a large variety of PAs for PCS. Some of these are individual amps designed to work with a number of different standards. This is very desirable. A handset manufacturer, by using one PA, can design PCS handsets to meet a number of different PCS standards. This saves on manufacturing costs and allows the development of dual function handsets (handsets that can work on two standards-the latest rage in PCS and Cellular handset design). How big is the PCS market? In the US 1-2 M units are projected to be sold 1997; 7 M by 2000. Worldwide, the market is expected to be much larger. PCS is touted as being the enabling technology that will give the Third World widespread telephone communications. For this reason 200 M PCS units are forecast to be in use by 2000. Ericsson knows this, so does Nortel, Motorola, Nokia, NEC, etc; and there is a flurry of design and development activity being undertaken by these companies to produce L Band wireless technology. How good is Celeritek's technology? If Ericsson, which has a superlative RF design capability and a hell of a reputation to maintain, is seeking out CLTK for solutions to these problems, you can bet that the PCS power amplifier problem is not trivial. Ericsson is wise in dealing with CLTK. By doing so, they don't have to invest in years of R&D, or build high capacity GaAs fabs. The range of products that CLTK has means that Ericsson can quickly retool and redesign to the expected vagaries of the PCS market: which is projected to be large, but, as mentioned, nothing short of confused as to what the defining standards will be.
Hope this techie analysis hasn't underwhelmed/overwhelmed you. I don't work for CLTK or any major telecom/semi company. The above is based on public information garnered primarily from the WWW and data books. I hope its correct, correct me if I'm wrong./J-DJZUBA/ |
