40 years after Motorola’s Marty Cooper made the world’s first cell phone call, the race to bring new mobile phones to market has never been more intense. Chipsets that integrate mobile processors, modems, graphics processors and connectivity solutions are speeding time-to-market for manufacturers. Broadcom and Qualcomm have created integrated chipsets specifically targeted at the Asian market. MediaTek and ST-Ericsson, which is being absorbed by its parent companies Ericsson and STMicroelectronics, are also working to integrate chipsets to create “turnkey” solutions for manufacturers.
Today DigiTimes is reporting that Foxconn, Compal and Arima Communications are all developing smartphones based on reference designs from semiconductor companies. The report says that Compal is expected to ship Android phones to China this quarter based on Broadcom’s BCM21664T reference design.
“We’re closing the void between chipset OEMs and phone OEMs,” says Mukul Seth, Broadcom’s director of marketing for mobile platform solutions. “Think of it as a Lego – the hardware is done, the software is done, our customer can take it and build a phone.”
“Low and entry level smartphones are cannibalizing feature phones, and are probably the biggest segment by volume,” says David Favreau, vice president of product management at Qualcomm Atheros. He says Qualcomm has a large team in China working on a full turnkey reference design for mid-to-low-end smartphone platforms.
Unlike the United States and Europe, China is home to dozens of mobile phone manufacturers. Many of the phones made there never leave the country; roughly one of every three smartphones made worldwide is purchased in China.
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