Korea Telecom Taps Altair for Ultra-Low Power LTE Connectivity of Smart Meter, GPS Tracking and Power-Save Mode Use Cases

HOD HASHARON, Israel, November 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Altair Semiconductor (http://www.altair-semi.com), a leading provider of LTE chipsets, today announced its FourGee-1160 Category 1 (CAT-1) chipset has been selected by Korea Telecom (KT) to provide ultra-low power LTE connectivity for three Internet of Things (IoT) use cases on exhibit at the "KT Internet of Small Things" Event in Korea last week.

"This Korea Telecom/Altair Semiconductor demonstration, is designed to show how mature LTE CAT-1 is, and to illustrate several typical use cases - among the many - that this IoT connectivity technology enables," said Byungkyun Kim, PhD, Vice President of Device Business Unit, KT. "We partnered with Altair as they have the only CAT-1 chipset platform that is able to meet our aggressive power and feature requirements. We are looking forward to expanding the strategic collaboration with Altair as this technology commercializes."

Altair's FourGee-1160 is the first chipset designed and optimized exclusively for LTE CAT-1 operation. It features ultra-low power consumption, support for a variety of typical host/peripheral interfaces, an embedded power management unit and a flexible application layer with hardware based security. The chipset has been adopted by numerous M2M/IoT module and device makers and is expected to ship commercially by the end of this year.

"The versatility of the FourGee-1160's architecture allows it to be used for a wide range of applications, such as these three that KT demonstrated at the event. At the same time, the common denominator is ultra-low power consumption, which today only Altair can offer in a CAT-1 chipset," said Eran Eshed, Co-founder and VP of Marketing and Business Development for Altair. "Smart gas or water meters, for example, require up to a 10-year battery to make good business sense. The 1160 was built for exactly these kinds of applications."

One unique feature of Altair's Four-Gee-1160 CAT-1 chipset is Power-Save Mode (PSM), which enables terminals to enter a deep-sleep mode for long periods of time after notifying the base station. This reduces significantly the amount of power associated with frequent communication requests normally sent by the base station. PSM is a crucial element of many IoT/M2M applications, including smart metering, smart city and telematics.

About Altair Semiconductor 

Altair Semiconductor is a leading provider of single-mode LTE chipsets. Altair's portfolio covers the complete spectrum of cellular 4G market needs, from supercharged video-centric applications all the way to ultra-low power, low cost IoT and M2M. Altair has shipped millions of LTE chipsets to date, commercially deployed on the world's most advanced LTE networks including Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Softbank. The company's customer roster includes some of the world's leading OEMs and ODMs, such as Hewlett-Packard, ASUS and D-Link, as well as the majority of Asian ODMs developing LTE products for global markets. For more information, visit http://www.altair-semi.com. Follow Altair on Twitter: @AltairSemi

Media/Analyst Contact:
Finn Partners Israel for Altair Semiconductor
Glenn Jasper
[email protected]
@goeljasper
+1-929-222-8002

SOURCE Altair Semiconductor