In a recent announcement, Altair Semiconductor (News - Alert), a provider of LTE chipsets, has said it will open a new research and development (R&D) center in Oulu, Finland. The new center will focus on the development of core LTE (News - Alert) IoT technology, tapping into the resources of the northern city, which has a reputation for expertise and market leadership in wireless communication technologies.
This new center is part of Altair’s strategy for technological innovation and builds on last year’s establishment of a similar center in Taiwan, and will be Altair’s first major European installation.
“Finland is the ideal location to begin Altair’s expansion into Europe, given the country’s significant IoT, connectivity and general innovation talent,” said Oded Melamed, CEO, Altair. “We see this move as strategic to growing our research and development capabilities.”
Altair’s portfolio includes chipsets that support a wide range of LTE categories and use cases. The company’s connectivity solutions are commercially deployed on advanced LTE networks from Verizon Wireless, AT&T (News - Alert), Softbank and Korea Telecom (KT), and its customer roster includes leading global module makers, OEMs and ODMs.
This is representative of a truly encouraging trend toward international innovation cooperatives designed to move the industry forward. Similar R&D centers have been established all over the globe by companies like GE, Intel (News - Alert), AT&T and many others. Such thinking is going to lead the IoT industry in a positive way that will make better, safer, more complete systems of solutions that will make the entire marketplace better.
More trust, more innovation and more growth are better for all of us in the IoT, and we encourage every company developing solutions to join with allied companies in such an R&D center or start their own and invite partners to help out.