Motorola Ventures has invested in WiMAX semiconductor firm Sequans Communications, the mobile vendor giant’s latest WiMAX move in a year that already has seen Motorola acquire equipment supplier NextNet Wireless and earn WiMAX deployment projects with Clearwire and Sprint.

The investment comes as an extension of the founding round the Sequans announced in July. Financial terms of Motorola’s investment were not disclosed.

“We are delighted to be investing in a company which has demonstrated leadership in WiMAX silicon,” said John O’Donohue, managing director, Motorola Ventures in Europe, in a statement.

Sequans provides base station and subscriber station chips, and plans to deliver a Mobile WiMAX chip for client devices in the first quarter next year that the company said is designed to exceed WiMAX Forum Wave 2 certification requirements.

It has been a busy week for Paris-based Sequans, which also announced Monday that it is working with its French neighbor Alcatel to develop low-cost WiMAX end user devices for developing countries. The production of those devices will begin in the second quarter of 2007, and will leverage Sequans’ chips and Alcatel’s advanced antenna technology, the companies said.

Related Articles

Moto’s Clearwire move stirs WiMAX implications

Sprint embraces WiMAX