Sivers Semiconductors announced that its business unit, Sivers Wireless, has been granted €0.6 million (approx. 6.7 MSEK) from the European Space Agency (ESA). The grant will cover funding for the design of satellite communication chips over the next 1.5 years.   

Sivers Wireless will be responsible for the design of a Q-/V-band direct quadrature demodulator chip for space applications. While today's satellite communication links primarily operate in the Ku (10-15GHz) and Ka (17-31GHz) frequency bands, there is increasing interest in the higher bands, such as Q (33-50GHz) and V (40-75GHz) bands, for next-generation satellite links.

These newer bands support wider bandwidths and higher data rates. Sivers Wireless will leverage its experience and expertise from Q and V band products for 5G and 60GHz applications to develop new products in these bands for SATCOM.

"Q-/V-band will enable Very High Throughput Satellites (VHTS), through the unlocking of this massive new available bandwidth at these higher mmWave frequencies, which will drive the next-generation LEO and MEO satellite constellations," said Anders Storm, CEO of Sivers Semiconductors. "This is the third federal funding award Sivers Wireless has received in less than 6 months. Sivers has now been acknowledged by three major government organizations in a very short time. This grant from the ESA solidifies our position as a trustworthy vendor in the satellite communication space, as grants from the EU, ESA, and DARPA are only received by major ecosystem vendors. It is extremely exciting to be selected by such a well-established organization as ESA."

Click here to learn more about Sivers Semiconductor's SATCOM products.