TMYTEK recently raised a Series A + round of approximately $ 10 million for products that simplify testing of 5G millimeter wave equipment. So far, the company's clients include KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, and research institutes. But the Taiwanese startup has the aspiration to sell its base stations as well, competing with established players such as Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung and Huawei. TMYTEK plans to use its experience gained from helping other researchers develop 5G infrastructure to create what its CEO describes as a "complete 5G industrial chain."
Its latest funding round was led by TMYTEK's manufacturing partner Inventec, one of Taiwan's largest OEMs, and brings the startup's total funding so far to $ 13.3 million. Other investors included Taisic Materials, ITEQ, Tamagawa Electronics, and the Taiwan National Development Fund. TMYTEK also recently took part in the SparkLabs Taipei Acceleration Program.
Co-founder and CEO Su-Wei Chang told ProWellTech that he plans to augment a Series B to develop and market its base stations. To prepare for its base station business, TMYTEK recently joined the O-RAN Alliance, which was founded by some of the world's largest telecommunications companies to create more interoperable mobile networks in an effort to encourage the development of new technologies and more quick.
Chang said TMYTEK's base in Taiwan gives it a strategic advantage. 5G manufacturing is an important part of Taiwan's economy, with exports hitting record highs in the second half of 2020, thanks in part to demand for 5G-related equipment and technologies for smartphones, autonomous vehicles and smart devices.
Chang studied at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and when TMYTEK was founded six years ago, he was often asked why he didn't stay in the United States, where it would be easier to get startup funding. But being in Taiwan brings the company closer to many important markets, including Japan, where 30% of its current business comes from, and gives TMYTEK a good base to expand into the US and European market, he said.
It also gave the company an edge in the supply chain. TMYTEK has manufacturing partners throughout Asia, including Inventec in Taiwan and factories in Vietnam and Thailand, as well as China. Chang said this means that TMYTEK has not been limited by the COVID-19 pandemic or the US-China trade war.
Prior to launching TMYTEK in 2014, Chang and co-founder Ethan Lin both worked at Academia Sinica, one of Taiwan's top research institutes, where they focused on millimeter waves even though most researchers were more at the time. interested in the spectrum of the middle band.
But as more devices and applications began to crowd the 4G spectrum, mmWave became less of a niche. With the launch of next-generation 5G mmWave hardware and chips by Qualcomm and more operators launching mmWave coverage, mmWave is set to go mainstream.
Millimeter waves offer powerful signals with wide bandwidth and low latency, but the drawbacks include difficulty traveling through obstacles such as buildings. It also has a limited range, which is why millimeter waves require more base stations. Beamforming, which directs signals to a specific device, and the array of antennas, or multiple antennas that function as a single antenna, are used to extend its coverage.
Speed up mmWave development
One of the main challenges for the millimeter wave market, however, is the lack of research and development tools to accelerate development and time to market, resulting in higher costs and slower deployment.
To keep up with market opportunities, TMYTEK has moved from designing and manufacturing projects for customers to offering 5G-centric solutions such as BBox, which stands for "beamforming box". The BBox was created after a professor from National Taiwan University told Chang that his team was working on antenna design but did not have the resources to work on beamforming technology as well. It allows researchers to create 16 beams and control the signal's amplitude and phase with software, so they can test its operation with antennas and other hardware more quickly. TMYTEK says BBox can save researchers and engineers up to 80% in time and costs.
Chang said TMYTEK realized that if researchers at NTU, one of Taiwan's largest research universities, needed a solution, other labs did too. So far, it has delivered 30 sets to companies including KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, Fujitsu, several Fortune 500 companies and research institutes.
While BBox was created for antenna designers, the company has also begun exploring solutions to help other designers, including algorithm developers who wish to test beam tracking, communicate with base stations, and collect data.
For this scenario, TMYTEK has created XBeam, which is described as a "total solution" and is intended for the mass production phase, testing modules, smartphones and base stations before shipping. Traditional solutions for testing modules rely on mechanical rotators, but Chang said this is better suited to the R&D process. The XBeam, based on BBox, instead scans the rays electronically. The company claims that XBeam is up to 20x faster than other test solutions.
TMYTEK prototype XBeam in 2019 and launched the commercialized version in November 2020.
BBox and XBeam will help TMYTEK build its base station business in two ways, Chang said. First, having its own solutions will allow TMYTEK to test base stations and bring them to market faster. Second, the startup hopes that building a reputation on effective research and development tools will help them market their base stations on public and private networks. This is particularly important to TMYTEK's ambitions as their base stations will compete with products from major players such as Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung and Huawei.
"Our advantage at TMYTEK is that we are designing and have good manufacturing partners. Inventec, our investor, is one of the top five manufacturers in Taiwan, "he said." And TMYTEK also builds our own test solution, so our value is that we can provide a total solution to our customers. "
