Beceem lines up $100 mn IPO

SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Looking at hitting the market with a public offer for the first time, communications chip maker Beceem Communications has filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The proposed initial public offering (IPO) is said to be worth up to $100 million. The Santa Clara based company is a maker of 4G-WiMAX chips.

Established in 2003, the company had posted revenues to the tune  of $43.7 million in 2009. The company, in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has disclosed revenue of about $13.9 million for both 2007 and 2008.

The filing makes Beceem the fourth chip maker in the US to file for an IPO in recent weeks. Power management IC vendor Alpha & Omega Semiconductor had, last week, filed for a $91 million IPO, while  RF and mixed-signal broadband communications IC provider MaxLinear Inc and logic IC vendor MagnaChip also filed for IPOs last month.

According to sources, more semiconductor initial public offerings are on the anvil, and one among them will be NXP Semiconductors, which is reportedly considering an IPO worth $1 billion.