Jacket Micro Devices (JMD), a supplier of small, high performing RF modules, announced it has received $12 M in venture funding. New investor Intersouth Partners led the round with participation from existing investors Noro-Moseley Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds and Imlay Investments. The new round of financing will be used to expand product development and ramp production of their recently introduced products for 802.11n applications.

"We believe JMD is strategically positioned to capitalize on the wireless industry’s demand for small, high performing RF modules," said John Glushik, partner of Intersouth Partners. "The company has not only developed a groundbreaking new method to package components for wireless products, but it also has a compelling competitive advantage due to its use of organic materials, which significantly reduces time to market for new products."

Key market drivers for JMD’s products include the growth in complexity of wireless technology driven by new standards, such as 802.11n and 802.16e, that require multiple transmit and receive paths and thus complex front ends. Shrinking form factors in portable products such as laptops and handsets require highly integrated solutions that can integrate all the active and passive components into a single module. According to In-Stat Research, the market for wireless interfaces that use the 802.11n standard will exceed 200 million units a year by 2009.

"RF modules are becoming an essential component of advanced wireless products because Moore’s law simply does not work for high performance RF circuits that require a mixture of semiconductor technologies and low loss passive components," said Jim Stratigos, JMD's CEO. "The systems-on-package approach using JMD's patented multi-layer organic technology is positioned to become the preferred solution to the challenge of integrating complex RF circuits into compact products."