Struggling wireless provider Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) has raised cash to beef up its network with new, faster technology.

Bellevue, WA-based Clearwire says it netted $715.5 million in stock sales Tuesday—$384.1 million in public share sales and another $331.4 million in a separate, private transaction with Sprint, its majority shareholder and customer.

It’s another big step in the rebuilding process that Clearwire CEO Erik Prusch has been quarterbacking since he took over the company in August from interim CEO John Stanton (previously, Prusch had served as CFO).

In a statement, Prusch said the infusion of cash “will enable us to continue delivering 4G mobile broadband service to meet the rapidly growing demand in the industry. We remain ideally and uniquely positioned to serve both wholesale and retail customers well into the future.”

Sprint’s participation in the stock sale is part of a $1.6 billion financing lifeline announced earlier this month, which allowed Clearwire to make a debt payment that it had considered skipping or paying late.

Clearwire was an early entrant in building fourth-generation, or 4G, networks in the U.S. But it based that network around a technology called WiMax, and the industry is now moving toward a faster technology known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE. Clearwire has said previously that it could need around $600 million to build LTE capacity.

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Remember when Sprint (NYSE: S) said it would buy more stock if Clearwire made an offering sometime in the future? Well, the bill’s about to come due: Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) says it plans to sell $300 million in Class A common shares. The sale’s underwriters also will get a 30-day option to buy up to $45 million more in Class A shares.

Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire said the stock sale will help finance its planned construction of a fourth-generation (or 4G) network based on technology known as long-term evolution, or LTE. Clearwire’s existing network is based around a different kind of technology, known as WiMAX, which is being passed by as LTE becomes standard in the industry.

Clearwire has previously announced plans to build an LTE network along its WiMAX offering, but needed about $600 million to pay for the project. Majority shareholder Sprint cut a financing deal with Clearwire last week to provide up to $1.6 billion, allowing Clearwire to make a debt payment that it had considered skipping.

That lifeline from Sprint included a commitment for Sprint to purchase stock based on its existing 49.6 percent voting interest in Clearwire. Sprint will be buying Class B common shares, Clearwire said in Monday’s announcement. The previously announced deal with Sprint also included a pre-payment of up to $350 over two years for capacity on Clearwire’s LTE network, if Clearwire hits milestones for building the network by June 2013.

J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Jefferies & Company will be the joint book-running managers, Clearwire said.

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Financially troubled wireless provider Clearwire and majority shareholder Sprint are keeping their seemingly reluctant partnership alive today, announcing a new injection of up to $1.6 billion from Sprint for current and future network capacity, along with possible equity sales.

The move allows Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire to make a $237 million debt payment due today—a bill that money-losing Clearwire had said it might skip or pay late. Clearwire had about $700 million in cash and about $4 billion in long-term debt at the end of the third quarter.

As you’d expect, shares of Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) bounced up on the Sprint (NYSE: S) financing deal. The company’s stock price has been tied very closely to the constant swings in Sprint’s attitude toward its partner—earlier this year, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse essentially said a Clearwire bankruptcy wouldn’t really be all that bad.

Clearwire’s present fourth-generation, or 4G, wireless network is based on a technology called WiMAX. Clearwire, founded by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, made an early bet on WiMAX that hasn’t panned out—the industry has since coalesced around a faster technology known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, for future networks.

Clearwire is planning to transition to an LTE network in the future, but it needs about $600 million to pay for that switch. It looks like today’s Sprint deal would supply some, but not all of the money needed to finance that work, which means it’s still an open question who will pay for the rest. Indeed, most of the money from Sprint is for WiMAX services.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Sprint pays $926 Million for unlimited WiMAX service in 2012 and 2013. Sprint and Clearwire also said the WiMAX network will be live through 2015, even though Sprint apparently hasn’t committed to selling WiMAX-compatible devices beyond next year.

• Sprint also could pre-pay up to $350 million over two years for capacity on Clearwire’s LTE network, but that depends on Clearwire hitting milestones for building the network by June 2013. Again, Clearwire will apparently need more investors to pay for an LTE network.

• As the majority shareholder, Sprint says it will buy more equity in Clearwire if the smaller company raises between $400 and $700 million.

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Sprint (NYSE: S) is unveiling a new plan to upgrade its national wireless network today, and Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire is not part of the picture. That’s sent shares of Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) into a nosedive, losing a third of their value in afternoon trading.

It had previously seemed that Sprint, as the majority shareholder, might have to play a key role in helping Clearwire remake its own network. Clearwire is a wholesale provider, but its early fourth-generation (or 4G) network is based on a kind of wireless technology called WiMax—and WiMax is quickly being displaced as long-term evolution, or LTE, becomes the industry standard.

Clearwire has said it needs close to $1 billion for its network upgrade—some $600 million to add LTE, with another $300 million or so to finish work on its existing WiMax infrastructure. But today, Sprint announced a $5 billion plan to upgrade its own network. And an investment in boosting Clearwire wasn’t part of the plan.

Even before today, Sprint had been sending increasing public signals that Clearwire is basically on its own. And the company hammered home the point even further today: As the Puget Sound Business Journal reports, Sprint said it wouldn’t offer Clearwire-compatible phones after next year, and CEO Dan Hesse said Sprint had “nothing beyond 2012 to announce” about network arrangements with Clearwire.

There’s also this Associated Press report on the analyst and investor meeting, which includes this key scene of Hesse basically pooh-poohing Clearwire’s situation:

“In a testy exchange with Sprint executives, a member of the audience at the investor meeting questioned why Sprint would risk forcing Clearwire to seek bankruptcy protection when it owns 54 percent of the company, and could lose its share of Clearwire’s spectrum in a bankruptcy case.

Sprint executives didn’t directly address that possibility, but Hesse noted that no bankruptcy case involving a wireless company has resulted in a disruption of service.”

Clearwire’s response was similar to the notes it’s sounded recently: Despite all the turmoil, it has lots of spectrum, and “Sprint remains dependent on Clearwire for 4G” today.

“As demand for mobile data increases, Clearwire remains the only viable 4G wholesaler with an operating 4G network, substantial spectrum resources, and a global technology road map to serve this growing market,” the company said in a statement.

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Broadband provider Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) is working with a major Chinese company to encourage development of devices for a new fourth-generation wireless network, even as the Kirkland, WA company continues looking for investors to bankroll its expansion.

Clearwire is collaborating with China Mobile to develop common technical specifications for makers of networking gear and mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, that can run on a kind of 4G network technology called TD-LTE. LTE stands for Long-Term Evolution, a type of wireless technology that is quickly becoming the standard for next-generation networks. The company’s release didn’t specify any financial terms of the collaboration.

Clearwire initially built its 4G network on a different kind of technology, known as WiMax. It’s now having to make the switch to LTE, but needs money to do that—some $600 million, along with another $300 million or so to finish work on the WiMax side, the company has said.

There’s no news of investors who have come forward to underwrite those costs yet. Majority shareholder Sprint (NYSE: S) looks to be a key player in determining how Clearwire will be able to get financing for its new LTE network.

In the meantime, deals like the common standards arrangement with China Mobile can help grow the pipeline of devices that’ll be needed for an eventual network. Clearwire named a new CEO in August, tapping Erik Prusch to replace wireless industry pioneer John Stanton, who remains the company’s chairman.

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Continuing its strategy to cut costs, Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) today said that about 700 customer service workers in Las Vegas and Milton, FL, will now be employed by TeleTech, which already had been performing some work for Clearwire. Some 180 workers in both cities will remain on the Clearwire payroll.
The Pensacola News Journal reports that about 370 of Clearwire’s roughly 500 workers in the Florida office will now work for TeleTech, with the balance remaining Clearwire employees. That also means the company is repaying some $2 million in incentive payments from the governor’s office, which the News Journal says Clearwire “received in anticipation of an expansion that will not happen.”
This follows the Kirkland, WA-based wireless network operator’s recent announcement that it would hand over day-to-day network operations to Ericsson, which performs the same function for majority shareholder Sprint (NASDAQ: S). (h/t Geekwire.)

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Wireless network provider Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) continues taking significant steps to remake itself. Today, the Kirkland, WA-based company announced it is handing over day-to-day management of its fourth-generation (4G) network to Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC). The move means that about 700 Clearwire employees will work for Ericsson, “in locations around the United States before mid-year 2011,” the companies said in a news release. Financial terms of the seven-year partnership were not disclosed.

This looks like another sign of Sprint, Clearwire’s majority shareholder, exerting stronger influence over company direction and strategy—Ericsson has a similar management deal with Sprint (NYSE: S) dating to 2009, the press release said. Clearwire cut staff late last year as part of a restructuring plan, and announced at the end of 2010 that founder Craig McCaw was out as chairman.

In March, the company announced that another Northwest wireless pioneer, John Stanton, was taking over as interim CEO after three top officers left Clearwire. And last month, Clearwire and Sprint announced they had settled a lingering dispute over wholesale pricing in a $1 billion deal. At the time, Stanton said that deal would allow Clearwire to operate efficiently for the next two years while planning for growth.

Clearwire’s current 4G network is built around a technology called WiMax, but the company has said it is open to adopting a different kind of technology, called Long-Term Evolution or LTE, that is more widely used by other wireless companies. At the time of the Sprint wholesale deal, Stanton was quoted as saying that Clearwire would, however, need more money to expand to LTE. Clearwire’s current investors also include Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Intel

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Troubled 4G wireless network operator Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) had some positive news today, reporting that it and majority shareholder Sprint had resolved a dispute over wholesale pricing. Sprint (NYSE: S) will pay at least $1 billion over the next two years for use of Clearwire’s service, the companies said in a joint statement.

Interim Chief Executive John Stanton told the Wall Street Journal that the cash allows Clearwire to “operate efficiently over the next couple of years” and plan for expansion. Stanton took over the CEO’s job last month, after Bill Morrow and two other top officers left the Kirkland, WA-based company. Clearwire said at that time that it believed an agreement with Sprint was imminent. Clearwire founder and longtime wireless leader Craig McCaw resigned as chairman a few months back, and late last year Clearwire reported that it was cutting 15 percent of its workforce.

The deal announced today gives Clearwire $300 million this year, $550 million next year, and a $175 million prepayment to allow Sprint continued access to Clearwire’s 4G services. The two companies also said they have an agreement for Sprint phones that operate both on Sprint’s 3G network and Clearwire’s 4G system.

Stanton also declined to comment when asked by the WSJ whether Clearwire was discussing a possible takeover by Sprint, and said Clearwire would need more money if it decides to expand its 4G network to include a second type of technology, known as Long-Term Evololution or LTE. He did say Clearwire’s current investors, which also include Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Intel, may be interested in helping.

Clearwire’s current network is based on a technology called WiMax, but the company has tested LTE systems, and said it is “technology agnostic.” LTE is more widely used by other wireless companies.

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Qualcomm dominated San Diego’s BizTech news last week, with the kickoff of its World Cup coverage on FLO TV, making a $1 billion bid for broadband spectrum in India, and an acquisition in the Netherlands. You can get that and more here.

—Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) says it’s the provisional winner after bidding more than $1 billion for broadband wireless access spectrum in four Indian cities. After spending that kind of cash, the San Diego wireless giant has big plans to build wireless networks based on its proprietary LTE technology. The move perplexed some observers, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. But a few WiMax services have been deployed in India, and Peggy Johnson, Qualcomm’s executive vice president for the Americas and India, told the U-T that Qualcomm “wanted to ensure” the path from 3G to LTE was assured.

—San Diego has been nurturing a cluster of software companies that specialize in predictive analytics. Now at least four companies that specialize in analytics—Teradata (NYSE:TDC), EDSA, Zementis, and Detectent—are focusing on developing new ways of analyzing data and making predictions that are useful to utilities. As the power grid gets “smarter,” innovations will be needed to help meet state requirements to get a third of their energy from solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources by 2020.

—The World Cup soccer tournament playing in South Africa through July 11 ranks as the No. 1 sporting event in the world. During the last World Cup in 2006, the cumulative audience over the four-week tournament was more than 26.3 billion people. Qualcomm’s FLO TV is broadcasting this year’s World Cup matches to mobile devices, although FLO TV wasn’t able to take advantage of the much bigger audience outside the United States. A FLO TV spokeswoman told me, “We are not satisfied with the overall take-up of mobile TV in the US, but we are optimistic about broadcast, mobile video and future FLO services.”

—After previewing its 3D TVs for reporters at its North America headquarters in San Diego, Sony Electronics says it is now taking orders. Unlike some 3D television makers, though, Sony has placed its bet on technology that requires active shutter 3D glasses that cost $150 a pair.

— Qualcomm—there’s that name again—said its European venture arm has led a new investment round in Anteryon, an optical module maker for mobile phone cameras based in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands.

—Paul Barber, the managing general partner of San Diego-based JMI and a longtime investor and director of Bothell, WA-based Vertafore, will get to cash out his firm’s investment. TPG Capital announced plans to acquire Vertafore, which provides software and services to the insurance industry, for $1.4 billion.

—The San Diego area is serving as an extensive test market over the next year for at least 10 different types of plug-in electric vehicles. The largest rollout is scheduled to begin in December as the five-passenger Nissan Leaf all-electric vehicle becomes available here. Nissan plans to sell as many as 1,000 of the zero-emission vehicles in San Diego.

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Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) switched on its WiMax wireless broadband service in the Puget Sound region of Washington today. The coverage area for fast Internet access is about 1,300 square miles around Seattle, extending as far as Arlington, Lakewood, North Bend, and Silverdale. Clearwire’s service is expected to go live in more than 25 markets around the U.S. by the end of the year. Sprint (NYSE: S), the largest shareholder in Clearwire, also rolled out its 4G mobile broadband service in Seattle today; the service runs on Clearwire’s network.

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Healthcare deals are going one way, tech deals another. That’s my read from the past week in the Northwest, where we’ve seen some of the biggest biotech deals around, even as a prominent Seattle tech venture firm (and software financings in general) head south.

—Bothell, WA-based Alder Biopharmaceuticals scored one of the biggest biotech partnerships of the year, as Luke reported today. The company has formed a collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) to develop Alder’s experimental rheumatoid arthritis drug, ALD518, and the deal could be worth more than $1 billion. In exchange for granting Bristol a worldwide exclusive license to develop ALD518 for all uses except cancer, Alder will get $85 million upfront, as much as $764 million in development and regulatory milestone payments, sales-related milestone payments that could exceed $200 million, and royalties on product sales.

—I took a look at the venture and debt financings for Washington companies last month (and the previous two months), and concluded that large investments in software startups aren’t coming back anytime soon. The data, courtesy of New York-based ChubbyBrain, shows most of the money is in healthcare and life sciences.

—Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire has secured an additional investment of $1.5 billion from Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Intel, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Google, a previous investor, is not participating in the round. The money will support Clearwire’s (NASDAQ: CLWR) deployment of its WiMax broadband network.

—Verathon, a Bothell, WA-based maker of ultrasound technology, has been acquired by Sarasota, FL-based Roper Industries (NYSE: ROP) as part of a pair of transactions worth a combined $356 million, as Luke reported. The price of Verathon’s sale by itself was not announced. The company develops a 3-D diagnostic imaging tool that helps doctors diagnose bladder disorders.

—One of Seattle’s most prominent tech VC firms will not be raising another fund or making new investments. Len Jordan of Frazier Technology Ventures confirmed the news as he announced he’s moving to Madrona Venture Group at the beginning of next year.

—Bellevue, WA-based Light Sciences Oncology has lined up $35 million in follow-up financing to develop its drug-device treatment for cancer, as Luke reported. The investors weren’t disclosed, but the deal gives Light Sciences the right to access a $23.3 million line of credit, and $11.8 million more if investors choose to exercise warrants. The company raised $40 million from undisclosed VCs last year.

—Seattle startup Movaya Wireless has been acquired by Digby, a mobile commerce firm based in Austin, TX, for an undisclosed price. Movaya was founded in 2006 by Phil Yerkes and Stanley Wang, and focuses on making digital goods storefront applications for the iPhone, Android, and mobile Web platforms. The company’s development team in China will serve as the basis for Digby’s operations in Asia.

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Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) is about to receive an investment of at least $1.5 billion led by Sprint Nextel, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sprint will invest $1 billion, and its partners, including Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks, will chip in an additional $500 million, for continuing support of Clearwire’s WiMax broadband network. Google, which has invested previously in Clearwire, is not participating in the current financing round. The official announcement could come as early as this week, the WSJ reports.

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Paul Allen, the Seattle-area billionaire who co-founded Microsoft, has agreed to sell 24 licenses for wireless spectrum in Washington and Oregon to AT&T, according to a report by Bloomberg News, which cites filings with the Federal Communications Commission. The price of the sale, which has not yet been approved by the FCC, is not disclosed.

A unit of AT&T called Mobility II is acquiring the licenses from Allen’s Vulcan Spectrum, based in Seattle. The spectrum covers airwaves in the 700 megahertz frequency range—the former “UHF” television band freed up for wireless use this year. According to Bloomberg, AT&T (NYSE: ATT) wants the licenses to support its introduction of “long-term evolution,” a next-generation wireless broadband service that competes with the WiMax service from Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR). Vulcan still owns licenses for other parts of the wireless spectrum in Seattle, Portland, and other areas.

Back in May, managing director Steve Hall of Vulcan Capital, Allen’s venture organization, told us that the investments in wireless spectrum fit into a broader focus on the mobile industry. Vulcan invested in two spectrum auctions, Hall said—one in 2003 (where the licenses in question come from) and one in 2008, deploying about $130 million in total. “We saw the scarcity of spectrum, running against what we believe demand is for appliances, devices, smartphones, iPhone,” Hall said at the time. Vulcan’s view, he added, was that infrastructure was “the best way to play.”

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It was another fairly quiet week for Northwest deals, as summer officially winds down. Activity in wireless, software, and biotech led the way.

—The Oregon Angel Fund, based in Portland, said it has closed a new $3 million fund this summer, raised from 60 individual investors and the Oregon Growth Account, a state-run fund dedicated to startups. The angel group has made three new investments with its fund, putting $500,000 into Vancouver, WA-based ClearAccess, committing to invest $500,000 in Portland-based Giftango, and investing $405,000 in Portland-based Wicked Quick.

—Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) signed a collaborative agreement with UQ Communications of Japan and Yota of Russia to support international roaming between the three WiMax operators. Financial details weren’t given. Clearwire is rolling out WiMax, a next-generation wireless broadband service, in cities across the U.S.

—Mukilteo, WA-based CombiMatrix (NASDAQ: CBMX) received a $1.5 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to develop automated tools that can detect biological, chemical, and environmental hazards, as Luke reported. CombiMatrix makes genetic analysis tools, and has developed other products for the military.

—Plum, a social media sharing and messaging service backed by Seattle’s Vulcan Capital and Levensohn Venture Partners in San Francisco, was acquired by Finnish mobile giant Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Financial details were not disclosed. Plum has about 10 employees in Boston and San Francisco.

—Seattle-based Uptake Medical raised $3.4 million out of a total equity offering worth $13.3 million, as Luke reported. The investors were not disclosed. Uptake Medical is developing a device that seals off access to diseased parts of the lung where air gets trapped, without leaving any implantable device behind.

—Redmond, WA-based Smilebox, a photo services startup, acquired Preclick, a Seattle and New Jersey-based maker of photo software for retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Walgreens, for an undisclosed price. Smilebox launched its service, which lets people create electronic greeting cards, photo albums, and slideshows, in 2006.

—Venture capitalists invested $25 million in four companies headquartered in Washington state last month, according to data from ChubbyBrain, a New York-based firm that develops tools for investors, startups, and entrepreneurs. Bellevue, WA-based Apptio led the way with its $14 million Series B financing from Madrona Venture Group, Greylock Partners, and new investors Shasta Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz Fund.

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Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) announced today it has signed a collaborative agreement with UQ Communications of Japan and Yota of Russia to support international roaming between the three WiMax operators. Financial terms were not disclosed. WiMax is a next-generation wireless broadband service, which Clearwire is rolling out across the U.S. Clearwire also has partnerships with YTL Communications of Malaysia, wi-tribe of Pakistan, Vee Telecom of Taiwan, and Global Mobile of Taiwan.

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As interest builds in the coming introduction of new wireless netbooks, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs tells the San Diego Union-Tribune that many netbooks based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor also will include Qualcomm’s MediaFLO, the company’s satellite-based TV broadcast for mobile devices.

In an interview with the newspaper’s editorial board, Jacobs says the new line of netbooks—which he calls “smartbooks”—will use MediaFLO technology so users can watch live events and FloTV programming transmitted directly to their display screens. But the technology also will be used to rapidly broadcast and store Internet content. Qualcomm calls it “data casting,” Jacobs says. “That’s sending snippets of data down, so headlines, weather, sports, stock quotes — whatever you might be interested in — we are looking at broadcasting that down to the device. So when you open it up, there’s already live data on it. I think that will be pretty compelling.”

Paul Jacobs

The next three months should tell whether Jacobs is right, but we should expect a few more surprises by the time the Christmas shopping season begins in earnest.

In June, Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar said Hewlett-Packard plans to launch a line of netbooks before the year ends that will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, rather than the Intel Atom processors now dominating the sector. As the world’s No. 1 desktop PC maker, HP’s decision to power its netbooks with Snapdragon chips represents a significant endorsement for Qualcomm over Intel and the line of Atom processors developed for the emerging netbook market.

Neither Qualcomm nor HP have announced the deal, but Kumar told me at the time that he’s got sources in HP’s Asian supply chain who are vouching that HP’s new netbooks will have “Qualcomm inside.”

Analysts have been closely watching the uptake of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset—both for what it means for Qualcomm’s expansion into smartbooks (as opposed to netbooks) as well as the ramifications that has for Intel’s business. But in his interview with the Union-Tribune, Jacobs minimized the significance of the looming head-on competition between Qualcomm and … Next Page »

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Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) announced today it has rolled out its WiMax wireless broadband service in 10 new cities, including Bellingham, WA, and Boise, ID. Also on the list are eight cities in Texas, including Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, and Waco. The new markets join Las Vegas, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Portland, OR as WiMax hubs. Yesterday, Clearwire also announced two new executives who are helping with the WiMax deployments: Erik Prusch, chief financial officer, and Teresa Elder, president of strategic partnerships and wholesale.

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San Diego-based Rayspan said today that it has collected $12.5 million in Series B funding to finance its work on advanced materials that could be used to make smaller, more sensitive, and more versatile antennas for mobile devices. Existing investor Sequoia Capital of Menlo Park, CA, provided part of the money, with the rest coming from new investor Khosla Ventures, also of Menlo Park.

The wireless world is fraught with different, often competing standards for delivering data to mobile devices across small or large distances, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 2G and 3G cellular, and GPS. Coming down the road just behind those are newer technologies like WiMax, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and ultrawideband. It takes a fancy antenna, or several of them, to make a mobile device like a cell phone work on several of these standards at once. And WiMax and LTE work best using an altogether new type of antenna called multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO).

The problem with MIMO antennas to date has been that to work efficiently, they need to be of a certain size—about half of the wavelength of the radio frequency they’re designed to detect. If you make them small enough to fit inside a mobile device, they lose sensitivity.

Rayspan, founded in 2006, is taking advantage of progress in a field called metamaterials to make much smaller MIMO antennas that still have high performance.

Metamaterials are composite materials that are structured on a macroscopic level to have unusual optical or electromagnetic properties. Maha Achour, Rayspan’s co-founder and chief technology officer, has applied for patents on a range of radio-related applications for metamaterials, including MIMO antennas (also called “air interfaces”) with individual elements that are as small as one-tenth to one-fifteenth of a wavelength. Such elements can be printed directly on a circuit board and spaced very closely together, potentially giving small mobile devices full MIMO performance.

Rayspan hopes to license the intellectual property behind its metamaterial antennas to wireless device manufacturers making cellular, Wi-Fi, WiMax, and multiband equipment. Pierre Lamond, a general partner at Khosla ventures, said in today’s announcement that the firm believes Rayspan will become “an industry-leading air interface provider in the huge wireless markets they target.”

Achour is a San Diego wireless industry veteran with a doctorate in physics from MIT. She has worked at
San Diego Research Center, UlmTech, Optical Access, LightPointe, and Tiernan Communication. Her co-founder Franz Birkner, Rayspan’s CEO and president, is managing director of Express Ventures and is a veteran of Dot Wireless (acquired by Texas Instruments), Cognet Microsystems (acquired by Intel), and ComStream (acquired by Spar Aerospace).

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Earlier this month, Xconomy reported that San Diego’s Ethertronics raised an additional $4 million in a secondary round of venture funding. Yesterday, I sat down with Sahil Bansal, Ethertronics’ director of strategic marketing, who explained how the company has emerged as a specialist in embedded antennas for cell phones and how it’s planning to use the new funds to move into the next-generation of wireless devices through “active antennas” for tuning into a diverse spectrum of mobile TV, FM radio, Bluetooth, and other services.

Ethertronics co-founders Laurent Desclos and Sebastian Rowson started the company in 2000 to commercialize new antenna technology known as IMD, for Isolated Magnetic Dipole. As Bansal explained it, both IMD and conventional embedded antennas are mounted on a circuit board and excited by an electric current. But with its patented IMD technology, Ethertronics can confine the current in the antenna element more effectively, which keeps energy from being dissipated through the circuit board and to surrounding components. Isolating the antenna in this way makes it more efficient, which allows for smaller effective antenna size and improved overall performance when a caller asks, “Can you hear me now?”

The innovation enabled Ethertronics to get its first patent in 2003 and its first order in 2004 from South Korea’s LG Electronics, currently the world’s third-largest handset maker. In the next two years, Ethertronics got its first orders from Samsung and Motorola.

Bansal says the privately held company now holds or has applied for more than 50 patents and ranks as a leading provider of embedded antennas for the wireless industry. Ethertronics has more than 180 employees, including about 35 at its San Diego headquarters and R&D center. Most of Ethertronics’ other employees work in South Korea, Taiwan, and China, and 80 percent of its global workforce is in engineering.

Ethertronics says it has shipped more … Next Page »

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Verizon’s schedule for deploying speedy fourth generation mobile phones may be subject to delay. Citing a Deutsche Bank research report issued this morning, GigaOM suggests Verizon won’t make its plan to have LTE (Long-Term Evolution) handsets available by the end of 2010.

The holdup is due to the LTE chip production schedule at San Diego’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM). Verizon has said it will have LTE in 20-35 markets by the end of 2010. However, Qualcomm’s LTE chips for data cards won’t be generally available until the second half of 2010, according to Deutsche Bank.

The process of building new chips into phones usually takes up to 18 months after the first chips are out. So LTE chips for handsets might not be available until well into 2011.

Qualcomm marketing director Michael Mamaghani said in San Francisco last week he expects the commercialization of LTE devices to happen in 2012 or later.

LTE represents an upgrade in 3G UMTS technology to 4G mobile technology. Verizon, AT&T, Motorola, and Samsung have generally shown more interest in LTE, while Sprint and Intel are advancing with rival WiMax (‘Worldwide Inter-operability for Microwave Access’) technology. Intel has developed its own WiMax chipset.

Anssi Vanjoki from Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone producer, last week harshly compared WiMax to Betamax, the early video format that was superseded by VHS in the 1980s.

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