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Company History

Terabeam/HXI was founded as Harmonix Corporation in 1992. The company was originally located in Woburn, Massachusetts and was a pioneer in the development of short-range, high data rate, wireless communication links for densely populated areas, such as Tokyo, where connection to fiber was not readily available or too expensive to be considered. The solution was a 100 MB, 60 GHz radio link that could easily be deployed on rooftops, behind windows, etc. Financial backing came from Omron Corporation and SoftBank, both Japanese companies, and the capability to develop and manufacture the radio link was built up around the founders. Engineers, technicians and assemblers came from companies such as Lockheed Sanders (now BAE Systems), Textron, Alpha Industries, M/A-COM and Millitech to form the core millimeter wave group that is still in place today.  Radio link deployments were originally in Japan and expanded to the U.S. when regulations were established. In October, 2000, Harmonix became the first company to obtain certification for a radio product under the FCC regulations for the newly established 57-64 GHz band. A complementary Components and Subsystems business, servicing government contractors, subcontractors, government entities and educational institutions, was a natural extension of the radio business, as the technology already existed within the company. The HXI brand name was established around this time and was used for both businesses.

In 2002, Harmonix (HXI) was acquired for its 60 GHz radio capability by Terabeam Corporation of Redmond, Washington, a leading manufacturer of Free Space Optics (FSO) data communications equipment. Terabeam had already made its mark on the communications industry when it received over $500 million in venture and private funding to develop the FSO technology, which would later be marketed to major carriers and enterprise customers. Shortly after the acquisition, Terabeam, using HXI expertise, became the first company to offer a 1.25 GB data rate, 60 GHz radio, re-establishing itself as the market leader.  In 2003, resources were added to market the millimeter wave components & subsystems capability worldwide under the Terabeam/HXI name & logo. 

Today, Terabeam/HXI is a division of Terabeam Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Terabeam, Inc., a public company traded on the NASDAQ as TRBM, with headquarters located in Terabeam's Proxim Wireless facility in San Jose, CA.  (Proxim provides administrative support to Terabeam/HXI.) Terabeam also acquired another millimeter wave radio company, Telaxis, in 2003. In 2005, the assets of Telaxis were integrated with our existing facilities and equipment into our new facility in Haverhill, Massachusetts.  

Our Millimeter Wave Component and Subsystem business supplies government contractors, subcontractors and other customers with key components for advanced communications, military systems and basic research. We address a myriad of markets, including military, industrial and commercial radars & sensors, aircraft landing systems, secure communications and communications surveillance, weapon detection, MilSATCOM, test equipment and university research. Our customer list has included BAE, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, L-3, Northrop Grumman, IBM, Battelle, NASA, NIST and various armed forces labs and other government organizations. We have also supplied to many educational institutions such as Johns Hopkins, UCLA, MIT, University of Michigan, as well as a number of prominent European universities.

Although we maintain a large standard product listing in our catalog, we primarily supply variations of these products, as well as custom-designed integrated subsystems. We will continue to draw from our extensive catalog of standard components and develop new application-specific integrated products for military, industrial and commercial customers worldwide.