ATLANTA (WiMAX Day). A start-up chipset designer named VT Silicon has landed $3.3 million in seed investment from Menlo Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital investors. The investment will enable VT to develop prototypes of chips it has designed for WiMAX-enabled devices.

VT Silicon is based at the Georgia Tech Advanced Technology Development Center. The company uses silicon-germanium (SiGe) in its chips, and according to a company press release, has a patent-pending technology known as “linear enhancement” that will prevent distortion of complex signals in WiMAX devices.

“This funding will allow us to take the linearization techniques we have already proven in a test chip and apply them to commercial chips within the next 9 to 12 months,” said Mike Hooper, chief executive officer of VT Silicon, in a report by local news station WRAL. “Our plan is to be shipping samples to customers early next year and to begin ramping to production by the middle of next year.”

Hal Calhoun, a managing director at Menlo Ventures, said his firm believes “that the leading-edge technology from VT Silicon will be very competitive in this fast-moving market… The combination of silicon germanium and unique linearization techniques makes the company’s technology attractive to the key players in this new market.”