CesiumAstro has acquired Jariet Technologies, folding the chip designer’s radio-frequency silicon into the satellite maker’s own stack in a bid to control its hardware from wafer to orbit.
The Austin, Texas-based company announced the deal on August 12, saying Jariet’s millimeter-wave RF system-on-chip products for SATCOM, electronic warfare and radar will now be built in-house. Jariet specializes in direct RF and intermediate-frequency sampling paired with digital signal processing for digital beamforming, technology used across space, aerospace and defense systems.
Bringing that semiconductor design capability in-house gives CesiumAstro a trusted US source for the chips at the heart of its phased arrays and software-defined payloads, rather than relying on third-party designs. The company described the move as another milestone toward becoming the industry’s most vertically integrated satellite communications business, spanning mixed-signal semiconductors, digital signal processing, active phased arrays, waveforms and end-to-end spacecraft.
The acquisition arrives as CesiumAstro prepares to launch its Element satellite this fall, a platform the company says will deliver communications and sensing for commercial, government and national security missions.
