According to TheMarker.com, a Web site covering the tech industry in Israel, Intel Corp. has purchased Israeli company Envara for $40 million.
Envara is a fab-less WLAN semiconductor company, meaning they design but don’t build chips for use in Wi-Fi products. The company also has offices in Palo Alto, California. Envara was founded in 2000 and concentrated on 802.11a chips to start, then moved to designing dual-band products. The company had previously raised a total of $38 million in backing.
The Envara Web site lists its products offerings as the 802.11g/b WiND512 and the dual-band 802.11a/b/g WiND502. Both are two chip solutions with a MAC/baseband and integrated RF chip.
Late last year the company announced it had received Wi-Fi Certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance for 802.11g/WPA interoperability with its USB 2.0-to-WLAN reference design.
Intel is planning to bring dual-band 802.11a/b/g to its Centrino chipset for laptops later this year, and this might be the design they plan to use.
Intel Communications Group PR Manager William Giles did not deny the rumor but said “We haven’t announced any new acquisitions, and we don’t comment on
rumors and speculation, so I don’t have a response.”