Can you tell us a little about Movandi and why the company was formed?
Maryam Rofougaran: Movandi was formed to reinvent multi-gigabit, millimeter-wave networks by bringing together world-class experts in radio, antenna, systems, and beamforming design to develop innovative RF front-end technology for 5G and beyond.
With the demand for wireline performance on wireless networks, the next generation of wireless applications requires orders of magnitude improvements in data rates and latency. Additionally, with 5G deployments on the horizon, the industry is searching for innovative solutions that address the challenges of millimeter-wave networks.
Maryam Rofougaran, Co-CEO/COO of Movandi
We feel our RF front-end technology provides the foundation for unlocking the potential of high-frequency wireless communications—opening numerous new market opportunities and applications.
A company press release mentioned BeamX technology, which is a scalable RF front-end system solution. What can you tell us about BeamX technology?
Rofougaran: Operating in the millimeter-wave band presents three unique technical challenges versus traditional connectivity and cellular systems. First, traditional approaches to RF design break down, requiring new and innovative architectures to achieve high performance in low-cost bulk CMOS foundries. Second, higher frequencies have greater transmission losses caused by distance, blockage, and non-line-of-sight conditions, depending on the environment and the application. Finally, to achieve longer range and coverage, beamforming antennas are often required, adding to system complexity.
Our BeamX front end integrates RF, antenna, beamforming, and control algorithms into a modular 5G millimeter-wave solution targeted for customer premises equipment (CPE), small cell, and base-station applications. Our technology is configurable to support different baseband/modem SoC solutions and is uniquely positioned to become the complete RF and antenna system, from baseband interface to antenna, for new applications in 5G, indoor gigabit access, the last mile, and satellite networks.
The innovative approach to BeamX can unlock the huge potential offered by much greater bandwidth, spatial reuse, and frequency reuse, which supports much higher-performance systems in the same regions with low cost and optimized power consumption.
Movandi’s BeamX front-end integrates RF, antenna, beamforming, and control algorithms into a modular 5G mm-wave solution targeted for Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), small cell, and base-station applications.
With 5G still in development, what does the company hope to achieve in the future?
Rofougaran: Millimeter-wave systems such as 5G are still in their nascent stages, and unlocking their full potential will be a key focus for Movandi as we move forward. The diversity of the applications will only grow as we move from fixed, to portable, to mobile devices.
We hope that our innovations and approach to overcome the known and unknown challenges of millimeter-wave and system-level coverage in an affordable way can accelerate the deployment of 5G both in fixed wireless and mobile and grow its market much quicker than it would otherwise. We hope to repeat what we achieved with growing the connectivity market in the past by innovating solution with combo products now in the 5G market.
