Nikkei Electronics Asia compares the push of both TI and Qualcomm to go beyond cellular phones to personal navigation devices (the rest of us call them GPS receivers). What's different from cell phones is that GPS is mandatory but cellular reception is not.
In competing with Marvel, Frescale and others, NEA concludes that Qualcomm is better suited for those PNDs that require cellular capabilities. However, TI offers a higher performance solution for the vast majority that do not require cellular connectivity.
Still, Qualcomm’s entry with the QST1000, QST1100 and QST1105 suggest a growth path forward for Qualcomm. The challenge will be to offer competitive products that are not strictly tied to its knowledge of cellular radios.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Qualcomm on 4G sidelines
As if we needed any more evidence, this week’s CTIA has made it official: the 4G race is down to LTE vs. WiMax, the 4G solutions respectively chosen by Verizon and Sprint, Qualcomm’s two largest US customers.
The CTIA pavilions were emphasizing the two technologies. LTE (the successor to GSM to W-CDMA) is racing to catch up with WiMax, and might even be available next year.
Beating the drum for LTE at CTIA was Arun Sarin, who at Pacific Telesis (then AirTouch) was one of the earliest CDMA backers. Now CEO of Vodafone (and part-owner of Verizon), as a CTIA keynoter he asked the industry to line up behind 3GPP’s LTE and not Intel’s WiMax.
No longer in the running is Qualcomm’s UMB, which was more or less marked for dead after losing Verizon and Sprint. It’s technically possible that Japan’s KDDI could choose UMB, but I don’t know why.
With UMB gone, after dissing WiMax, Qualcomm is clearly in the LTE camp. The MDM9xxx series chips announced in February all support LTE; the CDMA chips also support UMB, but now it’s not clear who will use it.
UMB is the 4G technology based on Flarion’s OFDMA. If UMB fails, it’s not clear what Qualcomm got for its $800 million purchase of Flarion. But then it depends on how many Flarion patents are required to implement the OFDMA LTE.
The CTIA pavilions were emphasizing the two technologies. LTE (the successor to GSM to W-CDMA) is racing to catch up with WiMax, and might even be available next year.
Beating the drum for LTE at CTIA was Arun Sarin, who at Pacific Telesis (then AirTouch) was one of the earliest CDMA backers. Now CEO of Vodafone (and part-owner of Verizon), as a CTIA keynoter he asked the industry to line up behind 3GPP’s LTE and not Intel’s WiMax.
No longer in the running is Qualcomm’s UMB, which was more or less marked for dead after losing Verizon and Sprint. It’s technically possible that Japan’s KDDI could choose UMB, but I don’t know why.
With UMB gone, after dissing WiMax, Qualcomm is clearly in the LTE camp. The MDM9xxx series chips announced in February all support LTE; the CDMA chips also support UMB, but now it’s not clear who will use it.
UMB is the 4G technology based on Flarion’s OFDMA. If UMB fails, it’s not clear what Qualcomm got for its $800 million purchase of Flarion. But then it depends on how many Flarion patents are required to implement the OFDMA LTE.
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