Heart of dragon beats inside smartest devices: Qualcomm

Dr. Sandeep Sibal, country manager and VP - Business Development, Qualcomm India & South Asia.

Mobile has emerged as the biggest platform in the history of mankind. Today, the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform is much more than a phone, according to Dr. Sandeep Sibal, country manager and VP – Business Development, Qualcomm India & South Asia.

For instance, there are 40 million mobile Internet users in India. There is a strong demand for data from tier 2 and 3 cities. There are said to be 28 million Facebook users, of which, 30 percent are mobile. About 20 photos uploaded every second, and mobile users are 2x times more active.

Qualcomm boasts of an unparallelled system integration, as having the best-in-class assets is now a key advantage. The benefits of integration include lower system costs, less engineering and faster time to market — over 745 devices launched in fiscal 2010, smaller footprint — about 10-20 percent smaller, and power efficiency — up to 35 percent better.

As for the roadmap breadth and execution, already, over a 100+ commercial devices have been announced that use Snapdragon. There are said to be 200+ more in design, and 30 companies with tablet designs are deemed underway. Snapdragon currently powers eight tablet models.

Snapdragon processors — what’s coming!
Snapdragon QSD 8×50 is the world’s first mobile processor at 1GHz. It features the Scorpion Core, Adreno 200 GPU, 3G connectivity and 720p HD video capture and playback. Snapdragon MSM 8×55 is said to be the world’s first mobile single core at 1.4GHz. It features a single Scorpion CPU 1.4GHz, Adreno 205 GPU, 1024×768/720p/Dolby 5.1, stereoscopic 3D capture and playback, app proc only available, and supports a comprehensive range of 3G.

The Snapdragon asynchronous dual and quad core family consists of the Snapdragon MSM 8×60. It features dual Scorpion CPU of 1.5GHz each, asynchronous cores, Adreno 220 GPU, HD 1080p capture and playback, Dolby 5.1, stereoscopic 3D capture and playback, and a comprehensive range of 3G.

Evolution of wireless market and emerging trends: Qualcomm

Matt Grob, SVP, corporate R&D, Qualcomm.

At the ISA CXO Conclave, Matt Grob, SVP, corporate R&D, Qualcomm, said that the company is a world leader in next-generation mobile technologies. It is celebrating 25 years of driving the evolution of wireless communications. It is making wireless more personal, affordable and accessible to people everywhere. Qualcomm is also the world’s largest fabless semiconductor company, #1 in wireless, and #9 in semiconductors.

Qualcomm’s unique business model is to be a technology enabler for the entire mobile value chain. It has continued strategic R&D investments, totalling more than $15.4 billion in 2010.

Industry trends
The 2G to 3G migration is currently taking place, with over 3.1 billion 3G subscriptions likely in 2015.  As for the emerging region growth, China leads with 640 percent, followed by Latin America at 465 percent and India at 168 percent, respectively.

Qualcomm is also said to be enabling the mobile broadband in India with 3G and LTE. Besides growing the LTE TDD ecosystem in region, it is building partnerships for long-term strategy and establishing 3G/LTE as best technology path for operators. Qualcomm is also driving the device evolution and growing the market by creating more choices for operators and consumers. It is developing low-cost 3G handsets for emerging markets using 1+ GHz mobile processors and supporting multiple popular OS.

The smartphone industry momentum has ensured that the ecosystem is benefitting from and driving growth. There has been as much as >25 percent YoY data revenue growth from leading operators. OEMs have launched 100+ new smartphones in the first half of CY 2010. The total mobile apps downloads from developers is likely to move up from 7 billion in 2009 to 50 billion by 2012.

More 'fabless IC billionaires' in 2010, says IC Insights! Is India listening?

Brilliant! There’s no other word to describe the first part of this headline!

As per IC Insights’ forecast of 2010 billion-dollar fabless IC suppliers, excerpted from a ranking of top 50 fabless IC suppliers in its ‘ 2011 edition of The McClean Report’, as many as 13 fabless IC suppliers are tipped to cross the $1-billion mark in sales in 2010! As per IC Insights, this is a significant step up — from 10 companies in 2009 and eight in 2008.

Leading fabless IC suppliers. Source: IC Insight, USA.

Just sit back and admire this table. There are nine firms from the US — Qualcomm, Broadcom, AMD, Marvell, Nvidia, Xilinx, Altera, LSI and Avago, three from Taiwan — MediaTek, Novatek and MStar, while ST-Ericsson is Europe’s lone representation in this stellar list.

In this august club of IC billionaires, no surprises, but Qualcomm retains the top place for the third consecutive year. Broadcom moves up a place. AMD should become the world’s third largest player.

Broadcom at 53 percent, Marvell at 34 percent, Xilinx at 39 percent, Altera at 63 percent, Avago and Novatek at 40 percent each are top performers. However, MStar of Taiwan steals the show with an estimated 75 percent growth in 2010.

Qualcomm, Nvidia and LSI have performed well, especially  the last two – coming pff a difficult 2009. Taiwan’s MediaTek has seen the biggest slip — down to 3 percent in 2010 from 22 percent in 2009.

There is no representation from Japan in the fabless IC billionaires club. IC Insights has indicated that the fabless/foundry hasn’t caught on in Japan and is unlikely to do so in the near future. However, Taiwan and China based firms should sooner or later find their way into this club.

I will now come to India!