The round included participation from existing investors and the money raised $#151: the amount is not being revealed — will be used to accelerate the introduction of the company's upcoming UMobile chipsets and software for WiMAX/WiBro enabled cellular handsets.

Wavesat (Montreal, Canada) already is selling devices for fixed WiMAX applications.

The funding round follows what the chip supplier says has been a successful year in which revenues grew by nearly 300 percent and during which it has sealed strategic partnerships with several industry leaders, received more than 30 design wins worldwide, and secured WiMAX Forum Certification for its WiMAX products.

One of those partnerships has been with its new investor, SK Telecom.

The last major round announced by Wavesat was in October 2004, when it raised $8 million from new investor Pac-Link Management Corp. of Taiwan, as well as from existing investors Skypoint Capital Corporation, BDC Venture Capital, Innovatech Montréal, Monet Capital and Sunsino Ventures Group.

"After looking at many semiconductor suppliers, we are pleased to extend our existing development partnership with Wavesat into an equity investment in the company", said Dr. Sean Sehyun Oh, CTO of SK Telecom.

Michel Guay, President and CEO of Wavesat, added in a statement Monday (Nov.6): "The fact that SK Telecom, the leading mobile service provider in Korea, led our financing round is a tremendous validation of our leading position and unique expertise with both fixed and mobile WiMAX standards. We believe this round will enable us to maintain our leadership position in WiMAX, accelerate our product roadmap, and achieve profitability."