Intel-Nokia Agreement Comments

With yesterday’s announcement of a strategic relationship between the computer chip giant and the cellphone chip, a number of business plans are likely to be revised.  It’s clear that Intel was moving increasingly to the world of mobile computing and that they need a 3G capability.  Apparently as a stopgap, Intel earlier entered into an agreement with EMP (now part of ST-Ericsson) to supply UMTS modules for use with Intel netbook platforms.

Motorola's Droid is a Winner Even if it's Not an "iPhone Killer"

Last week's introduction of Motorola's Droid smartphone has led to comments from "Incredibly slick and solid" to "it's no iPhone killer."  We think the first comment is closer to the mark. Some of the negative comments seem to be simply because it's not as cute and doesn't offer an instant ecosystem to rival Apple's. But Droid, at least initially, is a CDMA phone, which confines its market mostly to the U.S., and currently to only Verizon subscribers.  The iPhone, however, is based on UMTS, so its market is worldwide and addresses a much bigger audience than just AT&T's customers.  There has been a lot of "iPhone envy" by Verizon subscribers, since that UMTS phone has not been an option available to them.

Some Americans favor Verizon over AT&T. Why? Most cite a better coverage footprint which Verizon purposely misleads in its current ads because it compares its "3G" (CDMA-1x and -1xEV-DO) coverage map with that of AT&T's "3G" (UMTS/HSPA) map.  That's very misleading, since Qualcomm got its basic CDMA-1xEV listed as part of the IMT-2000 specification (ITU's 3G wireless standard), while AT&T's EDGE, which has a demonstrably higher data rate than 1xEV (and far greater AT&T geographic coverage), is not called "3G" and is simply referred to as 2.5G or 2.7G.  Needless to say, Verizon is not quick to point out the disparity.

But, we believe that Droid, with a multitasking operating system (Android 2.0), bigger and higher-resolution screen, a real keyboard and a number of other features that iPhone does not have, will be quickly embraced by a lot of Verizon subscribers to mollify their pent-up "iPhone envy."  Consequently, we think Droid is a winner as is the specialty Cliq smartphone (for T-Mobile).  We are happy to see Motorola back in the game with some strong new offerings and 20 more Android phones planned for 2010.

MediaTek Breaks into Motorola Entry-Level Handsets

According to a Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) article, Motorola has decided to outsource all of its entry-level handsets priced below US$150 and has designated MediaTek to be the chip supplier.
Motorola's outsourcing will amount to at least 40 million handsets each year, the article noted.  MediaTek has grown rapidly in cellphone chip market share to become arguably the No. 3 or No. 4 global cellphone chip supplier, now, by providing complete product solutions to ODMs and OEMs that include supporting chips from other vendors.  Although it's an over-simplification, MediaTek's customers essentially need only to wrap some good plastic around it and label the cellphone as their own.

China-based Spreadtrum also going into Motorola's China Handsets

Shanghai-based Spreadtrum Communications Inc. has announced that its GSM/GPRS baseband chips will be in Motorola's upcoming E11 touchscreen cellphone, apparently destined for the China market.  Early information indicates that the E11 features a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen and includes 3-megapixel camera, media player, 3D menu system, Bluetooth, and a microSD memory card slot. BTW, Spreadtrum's basebands are based on DSP cores licensed from CEVA, Inc.

TI Gets More Application Processor Bragging Rights

Texas Instruments, the leader in the cellphone application processor market, has updated their list of OMAP3 smartphone "sockets" that are shipping as of Oct. 30th:

OMAP3 is also in a few non-cellphone sockets, including the AI Touch Book, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, Dell's Latitude ON notebook and Logic's System on Module ultra-compact mobile computer. As you might expect, TI is promising more OMAP3 product rollouts this quarter and next.

Tensilica Continues to Roll out more DSP

With today's announcement of the Tensilica Xtensa LX3 Dataplane Processor/DSP, the company provides additional DSP choices for its customers.  The licensable LX3 is based on pre-verified logic for clients who don't need to customize the instruction set and simply want a good dual-MAC DSP platform with fewer options (like floating point acceleration or Tensilica's communications DSP package).  This marks the 8th generation of Xtensa processors, and the company shows no sign of slowing down development.

Atheros Intros Lowest Power 802.11n Chips 

Today, Atheros introduces what is arguably the lowest-power 802.11n Wi-Fi chipset for cellphones on the market (said to have "near-zero" impact on battery life).  Moreover, the new AR6003 is claimed to be the world's smallest Wi-Fi chip, even with its integral power management unit and linearized power amplifier.  The company also claims superior Bluetooth co-existence, including shared RX.   We believe that a combo 802.11n/Bluetooth 3.0 solution will soon be announced by Atheros.

ARM & Xilinx Become Bedfellows...Sort of

At the recent ARM developer's conference (called Techcon3), Xilinx announced that it had licensed ARM Cortex processor IP (but would not state which Cortex processors).  Xilinx also announced that it had adopted ARM physical IP (performance-optimized cell libraries and embedded memory) and was engaged with ARM in the joint development of the next-generation AMBA interconnect technology.  In a departure from its current Virtex embedded hard PowerPC core support (which will continue along with support for Xilinx' MicroBlaze soft RISC), the announcement with ARM specifically targets the 40nm Virtex-6 and 45nm Spartan families.   Neither party would spell out exactly what the resulting product(s) will be.  The mind wonders as to whether 1) this is specifically to enable next-gen ARM products to easily interconnect with next-gen Xilinx FPGAs, or 2) to add one or more hard ARM cores within FPGA arrays, a la the current PowerPC, or 3) provide soft RISC solutions based on ARM architecture a la MicroBlaze, or 4) some combination of the above.

Shameless Plugs:

Our newest market study, "Ultra Mobile Device & Chip Market Opportunities" lays out the dynamics of the emerging market for Netbooks, Smartbooks and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and forecasts both devices and the many chips that enable them through 2014.  The chip dynamics begins with Intel's Atom (and its progeny) and ARM (Mostly Cortex A8/A9) chips from several vendors (Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Freescale, Nvidia, etc.), but also goes into the 3G/LTE chips required for mobile Internet connectivity. The 311-page study provides detailed forecasts of Netbooks/Smartbooks & MIDs vs. Notebooks and Smartphones (from which they are taking market shares) and the chips that enable them. It profiles the key players and includes 22 figures and 79 tables plus appendix. Details are available at: www.fwdconcepts.com/NetSmart

LTE chips are emphasized in Forward Concepts' new "Cellular Handset & Chip Market '09" study.  This totally revised expanded annual market study is an in-depth (594-page) analysis of the top 53 handset makers and provides 2008 market sizes and vendor market shares by air interface.  The study also forecasts handset shipments and subscribers by air interface and global region through 2013.  And virtually all cellphone integrated circuits and 2008 vendor market shares for each are covered.  Chips are also forecast by type through 2013. We believe that this is the most extensive cellular handset and chip study available.  Details are at: www.fwdconcepts.com/cell9

NOTE: I'll be speaking at the "Silicon 2009" conference sponsored by the University of Bath in England on November 20th.  Attendance is FREE for individuals & companies who are involved in IC start-ups, design, development, Innovation and Investment.  The main reason you should attend is networking, since VCs, and regional development organizations from the U.S., the U.K. and France will be attending in addition to a number of semiconductor-related startups.  I hope to see you there. Details are at:
http://www.siliconsouthwest.co.uk/index.php

As always, I invite your comments. 

Will Strauss

President & Principal Analyst
wis@fwdconcepts.com
Forward Concepts
1575 W. University Dr. #111, Tempe AZ 85281, U.S.A.
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