Qualcomm
 |
|
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NASDAQ: QCOM S&P 500 Component |
| Industry | Telecommunications equipment Semiconductors |
| Founded | San Diego, California, USA(1985) |
| Founder(s) | Irwin Jacobs Andrew Viterbi |
| Headquarters |
San Diego, California,United |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people |
|
| Products | CDMA/WCDMA chipsets,Snapdragon , BREW, OmniTRACS, MediaFLO, QChat,mirasol displays, uiOne,Gobi |
| Revenue |  US$ 24.87billion (2013)[1] |
| Operating income | US$ 7.16 billion (2013)[1] |
| Profit | US$ 6.85 billion (2013)[1] |
| Total assets | US$ 45.52 billion (2013)[1] |
| Total equity | US$ 36.09 billion (2013)[1] |
| Employees | 26,000 (2013)[1] |
| Website | www.qualcomm.com |
Qualcomm Incorporated is an American global fabless semiconductor company
that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunicationsproducts
and services. Headquartered in San Diego, California, USA, the company has
157 worldwide locations. The parent company is Qualcomm Incorporated (Qualcomm), which includes the Qualcomm Technology Licensing Division (QTL). Qualcomm's wholly owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI), operates substantially all of Qualcomm's
R&D activities, as well as its product and services businesses, including its semiconductor business, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.
Corporate history[edit]
Qualcomm was founded in 1985 by Cornell
University alumnus and UC San Diegoprofessor Irwin
M. Jacobs, USC and MIT alumnus Andrew
Viterbi, Harvey White, Adelia Coffman, Andrew Cohen, Klein Gilhousen, and Franklin Antonio. Jacobs and Viterbi had previously founded Linkabit.
Qualcomm's first products and services included the OmniTRACS satellite locating and messaging service, used by long-haul trucking companies, developed from a product called Omninet owned by Parviz
Nazarian and Neil Kadisha, and specialized integrated circuits for digital radio communications such as a Viterbi
decoder.
In 1990, Qualcomm began the design of the first CDMA-based cellular base station, based upon calculations derived from the CDMA-based OmniTRACS satellite system. This work began as a study
contract fromAirTouch which was facing a shortage of cellular capacity in Los Angeles. Two years later Qualcomm began to
manufacture CDMA cell phones, base stations, and chips. The initial base stations were not reliable and the technology
was licensed wholly to Nortel in return for their work in improving the base station switching. The first CDMA technology was
standardized as IS-95. Qualcomm has since helped to establish the CDMA2000,WCDMA and LTE cellular
standards.
In 1991, Qualcomm acquired Eudora
(email client), a PC mail client that could be used with the Omnitracs system. The acquisition also associated a widely used email client with a company that was little-known at the time, Qualcomm.
In 1997, Qualcomm paid $18 million for the naming
rights to the Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, renaming it toQualcomm Stadium. The naming rights will
belong to Qualcomm until 2017.[2] In
November 1997, one of its employees -Richard Bliss - was arrested in Russia on
charges of espionage, though he was later released.
In 1999, Qualcomm sold its base station business to Ericsson,
and later, sold its cell phone manufacturing business to Kyocera. The company was now focused on developing and licensing wireless
technologies and selling ASICs that implement them.
In 2011, Qualcomm announced that Steve Mollenkopf has been promoted to president and chief operating officer of the company, effective November 12.[3]
CFO Bill Keitel will retire and be replaced by Applied
Materials CFO George Davis on March 11, 2013.[4]
On Dec 13 2013, Qualcomm suddenly announced that Steve
Mollenkopf, Qualcomm's president and chief operating officer will be replacing Paul E. Jacobs as the new
CEO of the company. This change would take effect from March 4 2014. Mr. Mollenkopf was being considered as a contender to replace Steve
Ballmer as the new CEO for Microsoft, thus the speculated reason for the sudden move from Qualcomm is to retain Steve
from leaving Qualcomm.[5]
Acquisitions[edit]
In December 29, 1999, Walter
Piecyk opened coverage with a "buy" rating and set a $1,000 price target on Qualcomm stock.[6]
In 2000, Qualcomm acquired SnapTrack, the inventor of
the assisted-GPS system for cellphones, branded as gpsOne.
The Snaptrack patents describe how a cellphone can acquire a GPS signal rapidly using timing information sent from the base station. This reduces the searching time for geolocation from minutes down to roughly one second.
In October 2004, Qualcomm acquired Trigenix Ltd, a mobile user interface (UI) software development company, based in Cambridge, UK. After integrating the company, Qualcomm re-branded their
interface markup language, TrigML, and its accompanying integrated development environment (IDE) as uiOne.
In March 2009, Qualcomm informed their Cambridge engineering staff, mostly from the division working on uiOne,
that they were going to be eliminated, and, in April that year, (after a legally required 30-day consultancy period) around 45 staff were let go. The rationale was stated as being a greater focus on deploying Flash
Lite as a UI solution for Qualcomm-chipset-powered mobile phones. During 2004 Qualcomm also acquired Iridigm Corporation to form Qualcomm MEMS Technologies to develop low power reflective displays for mobile applications.
In 2005, Qualcomm acquired Elata, a pioneer in the development of over-the-air (OTA) delivery technology for wireless applications and content since 2000. This acquisition extended Qualcomm’s
reach into Europe and reaffirmed its support for open wireless standards.[7]
In 2006, Qualcomm acquired Berkana Wireless, a specialist in RF CMOS solutions founded in 2001. This acquisition helped enable Qualcomm to more quickly deliver new, highly integrated RF CMOS
solutions to its CDMA2000 and WCDMA customers.[8]
In 2006, Qualcomm acquired Qualphone, a specialist in IP-based Multimedia Subsystems (IMS)-embedded client software solutions for mobile devices and a provider of interoperability testing (IOT)
services. This acquisition helped Qualcomm further accelerate the delivery of multimedia, feature-rich, 3G solutions on top of the emerging IMS and Multi Media Domain (MMD) architectures to CDMA2000® and WCDMA/UMTS markets.[9]
In 2006, Qualcomm acquired Airgo Networks, a company specializing in 802.11 chip and MIMO technologies. This acquisition helped Qualcomm enable its device-manufacturing partners to more quickly
and easily offer a wide range of compelling wireless devices.[10]
In 2006, Qualcomm acquired RF Micro Devices (RFMD). This acquisition enhanced Qualcomm’s ability to support its device-manufacturing partners.[10]
In 2006, Qualcomm acquired Flarion, a leader in OFDMA base station design. OFDMA is the basis of 4G LTE MAC and PHY design. Flarion's patent portfolio and engineering team and Radio Router
product line was acquired by Qualcomm. Andrew Viterbi, an ex-Qualcomm vice president and now a venture capitalist, had been one of the VC's who invested in Flarion.
In 2009, Qualcomm purchased AMD's handset division.[11] This
acquisition formed the basis for the later Adrenochips.[12]
In 2010, Qualcomm announced acquisition of San Francisco based iSkoot Technologies Inc. Qualcomm did not disclose financial details of the acquisition.[13]
In January 2011, Qualcomm announced acquisition of Atheros
Communications Inc. for about $3.2 billion in cash, broadening its lineup of Wi-Fi networking technology.[14]
In early February 2011, Qualcomm acquired the Canadian company of Sylectus.[15]
In June 2011, Qualcomm agreed to acquire all the assets of Rapid Bridge LLC (San Diego, California.)[16]
In July 2011, Qualcomm acquired some assets of GestureTek. The company plans to use the gesture recognition technology in its Snapdragon processors.[17]
In November 2011, Qualcomm acquired a substantial portfolio of assets and technology from HaloIPT. The company provides wireless charging technology for electric road vehicles.[18]
In August 2012, Qualcomm acquired DesignArt Networks.[19]
Mobile phone standards[edit]
Qualcomm pioneered the commercialization of the cdmaOne (IS-95) standard
for wireless cellular communications, following up with CDMA2000, an early standard for third-generation (3G)
mobile.
Today, the company is the leading patent holder in advanced 3G mobile technologies, including CDMA2000
1xEV-DO and its evolutions; WCDMA[20] and
its higher-speed variant known as HSPA and its evolutions; and TD-SCDMA;
as well as patents on 4G. The license streams from the patents on these inventions, and related products, are a major component of Qualcomm's business.
In June 2011, Qualcomm announced that it will be releasing a set of application
programming interfaces geared to give Web-based applications deeper links into hardware.[21]
Satellite phone network[edit]
Beginning in 1991, Qualcomm participated in the development of the Globalstar satellite
system along with Loral Space & Communications. It uses a low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite
constellation consisting of 44 active satellites. The system is used for voice telephony via hand-held satellite
phones, asset tracking and data transfer using mobilesatellite modems. The system was designed as a normal
IS-95 system, and used the satellite as a "bent pipe" or "repeater" to transfer cellular signals from the handset to the terrestrial base station. Unlike the Iridium system, which routes phone calls between satellites, the Globalstar satellite must always
be able to see both the handset and the base station to establish a connection, therefore, there is no coverage over the Earth's poles where there are no satellite orbits. There is also no coverage in locations where the large Globalstar base stations are
not in view (some locations in the south atlantic, for example.) Some of the Globalstar hardware is manufactured by Qualcomm. Like other satellite phone networks Globalstar went bankrupt in 1999, only to be bought up by a group of investors who are currently
running the system. Those investors plan to launch a constellation supporting EV-DO in 2009.
Legal issues[edit]
In April 2006, a dispute between Reliance
Communications and Qualcomm over royalty fees cost Qualcomm approximately $11.7b in market capitalization.[22] In
July 2007, Reliance and Qualcomm decided to settle the matter and agreed to expand the use of CDMA technology in India.[23]
In June 2007, the U.S.
International Trade Commission blocked the import of new cell phone models based on particular Qualcomm microchips. They found that these Qualcomm microchips infringe patents owned by Broadcom.
Broadcom has also initiated patent litigation in U.S. courts over this issue. At issue is software designed to extend battery life in chips while users make out-of-network calls. In October, an ITC administrative judge made an initial ruling that Qualcomm
violated the Broadcom patent covering that feature and the commission later affirmed the decision. Sprint Nextel Corp. is using a software patch from Qualcomm to get around a U.S. government agency ban on new phones with Qualcomm chips. In August 2007, Judge
Rudi Brewster held that Qualcomm had engaged in litigation misconduct by withholding relevant documents during the lawsuit it brought against Broadcom and that Qualcomm employees had lied about their involvement.[24][25]
In 2009, Qualcomm and Broadcom entered into a settlement and multi-year patent agreement, ending all litigation between the companies.[26]
In 2012 a federal probe was launched into the company’s compliance with the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act, which bars companies as well as individuals from bribing foreign officials to gain business.[27]
Qualcomm's role in 3G[edit]
The current UMTS air
interfaces are for the most part based on Qualcomm patents, and royalties from these patents represent a significant part of Qualcomm's revenue.
This followed a series of patent-related lawsuits and antitrust complaints, spearheaded by Broadcom, in the US. In 2006, Broadcom started
a series of patent-related lawsuits and antitrust complaints against Qualcomm to get what Broadcom regarded fair terms for access to the W-CDMA technologies. Broadcom was soon joined by Nokia and
others, and complaints were also filed in the European Commission.[28]
In 2007 the European Commission launched an inquiry into Qualcomm's possible abusing its dominant position in the market for third-generation phones. The complaints were first lodged in 2005
by leading handset manufacturersEricsson, Nokia, NEC, Panasonic and Texas
Instruments.[29]
In October 2008, Nokia announced it will make a one time payment of $2.29 billion (US) to Qualcomm as part of its patent agreement with the company.[30]
The Chinese TDSCDMA 3G technology was
developed primarily to avoid Qualcomm licensing fees, although Qualcomm claims that the Chinese technology still infringes on many Qualcomm patents.
Anti-trust probe[edit]
As of November 2013, an anti-trust probed was launched against Qualcomm by the Chinese Government.
The company released a statement indicating that the NDRC,
the regulating body overseeing the probe has “advised that substance of the investigation is confidential.”[31]
However it has been reported that Qualcomm recently met with the Ministry of Commerce earlier in July, although details of the discussion were not made public. The probe coincides with a recent
surge of investigations into large foreign corporations that are currently operating in China, with speculation by market analysts that the move has been instigated to advantage domestic firms as markets shift toward a new generation of wireless technology.[32]
Products[edit]
- Tracking devices - OmniTRACS is a two-way satellite communications and geolocationtrailer
tracking technology designed for the over-the-road transport market. As of April 2012, approximately 1.5 million units have been shipped to businesses in 39 countries on 4 continents.
- Semiconductors - Qualcomm designs various ARM architecture CDMA
and UMTS modem chipsets designated Mobile Station Modem (MSM), baseband radio
processors, SnapdragonSystem
on a chips, and power processor chips. These chipsets are sold to mobile phone manufacturers such as Kyocera, HTC
Corporation, Motorola, Sharp, Sanyo, LG, Nokia andSamsung for
integration into CDMA and UMTS cell phones. Although a "fabless" semiconductor company, meaning Qualcomm does not engage in the actual manufacturing process, the chips the firm has designed are powering a significant number of handsets and devices world wide,
both in CDMA and UMTS markets. As of summer of 2007, Qualcomm is among the top-ten
semiconductor firms, after Intel, Texas Instruments, Samsung, and a few others.
- Satellite phones - Qualcomm manufactures some of the handsets used on the Globalstar network.
- MediaFLO - Qualcomm is the inventor of the MediaFLO system, based upon OFDM,
which transmits 12-15 television channels within 6 MHz of spectrum. Qualcomm has standardized the lower layers of this design in TIA,
and manufactures chips and software to add this television capability to cellphones.
- QChat - QChat is a cellular/data 2-way push-to-talk voice
communications program. Nextel's original push-to-talk technology operates on the iDen network, but Qualcomm's Qchat push-to-talk operates on the EV-DO Revision A mobile broadband network. Sprint-Nextel's first QChat phones were released in June 2008. Both
iDen and Qchat handsets are sold under the Nextel brand. On November 29, 2009 Sprint issued a statement to PhoneNews.com that there are no new QChat handsets on the product development roadmap, but it will continue supporting its existing QChat subscribers.
- Qualcomm Gobi - Qualcomm Gobi is a mobile broadband chipset used
mainly for cellular data networking and it is also now used in a few enterprise smart phones (e.g. Motorola ES400). It currently is a 3G technology
capable up to HSPA on GSM and EV-DO
rev.A on CDMA carriers. The Gobi chipset is a microprocessor that can load a specific carrier image so that
the device appears to be specifically designed for that carrier's network. Since GSM and CDMA are quite different, and since Gobi devices can switch between them both using the same silicon, their solution is considered to be innovative. Gobi Technology is
best suited for large enterprise customers where a single mobile operator cannot serve all of their wireless modem needs since there is not one carrier that was provide the same level of service in all the places they need that service. The Gobi solution allows
the IT department to roll out a single module on their laptop builds which can be configured to behave exactly like a device that is locked to the carrier that they want to use in that area. In the United States exactly the same hardware can be used on the CDMA network
or the GSM network of their choice. For GSM users that travel out of the United States the Gobi solution can be used to avoid international roaming charges by switching the SIM and the device's carrier image to a local provider instead of incurring the roaming
charges. In both scenarios the customer must have different wireless accounts with each provider they wish to use natively. It typically takes 20 seconds for the device to load the carrier image into NVRAM and reset and come back online. Gobi 3000 is the next
hardware revision of the Gobi platform and it natively supports HSPA+. The model for Gobi 3000 is different.
It is a reference design the OEMs can licence and produce their own Gobi 3000 compliant modules with their own extensions. Qualcomm does not sell any Gobi 3000 silicon. The reference design allows the same boilerplate hardware and software components for the
basis of OEM chips which allow the OEMs to focus on innovations on the mobile broadband platform rather than getting bogged down with low-level RF implementations. Future Gobi platforms will support LTE natively. Currently, some Gobi 3000 modules support LTE
through their own extensions. - Mirasol displays - mirasol
displays are the world's first and only reflective, bistable display based on IMODtechnology.
Qualcomm's mirasol displays use ambient light as their source of illumination and consume almost no power when the image is unchanged. This results in a very low power display solution that is visible even in direct sunlight.
- HALO - A standard for Wirelessly charging vehicles with
relatively high efficiency[33] using Resonant
inductive coupling.[34] created
from more than 10 years of research at Auckland University[35][36][37]
Software[edit]
- Operating system - BREW (Binary Runtime Environment
for Wireless) is a proprietary cell phone application platform. BREW is designed so that the platform rejects unsigned applications. In order to have an application signed, a developer must pay a testing fee to National
Software Testing Labs (NSTL), which then can approve or deny the request. This allows carriers to maintain control over the applications that run on their customers' phones. BitPim is
a popular open source program which can access the embedded filesystem on phones using Qualcomm MSMs via a cable or Bluetooth.
It should be pointed out that signing systems are also used in Apple IOS, Java ME, and signing is often required by carriers and OEMs.
- Speech codec - Qualcomm has developed an audio codec for speech called
PureVoice,[38] which, besides use on
mobile phones, was also licensed for use in the very popular Chinese instant messaging software Tencent QQ.[39]
- FEC codec - After its acquisition of Fremont-based Digital Fountain in 2009, Qualcomm developed the latest generation of Raptor
codes called RaptorQ.[40]
- Eudora client - Qualcomm formerly developed and distributed Eudora,
which it acquired in 1991 from its authorSteve Dorner. Qualcomm ceased sales of Eudora on May 1, 2007.[41] Qualcomm
has committed to co-operate withMozilla developers to develop a Eudora-like version of Thunderbird,
called Project Penelope.[42]
- Eudora servers - Qualcomm formerly developed and sold email servers for multiple platforms, including WorldMail for Windows and EIMS (Eudora Internet Mail Server) for Macintosh. Qualcomm no longer sells these
products. Qualcomm continues to maintain and distribute the popular open-source Qpopper for Unix and Linux.
Management & Diagnostic tool[edit]
- QPST (Qualcomm Product Support Tool), QXDM (Qualcomm eXtensible Diagnostic Monitor) — official tool for management(QPST) and diagnostic(QXDM) Qualcomm based devices.
Services[edit]
QChat[edit]
QChat is a Push-to-Talk (PTT)
technology. The QChat software application was developed by Qualcomm Internet Services (QIS) [43] a
division of Qualcomm and part of the Qualcomm Wireless and Internet group.[44] QIS
offers a set of software products and content enablement services to support and accelerate the growth of the wireless data market.[44]
Qualcomm developed QChat to provide a reliable method of instant connection and two-way communication between users in different locations, but operating within the same type of network architecture.
Prior to the existence of cellular and personal communications services networks, this type of communication was limited to private Land
Mobile Radio System (LMR) technology used by public safety and utility service agencies. LMR has limitations, specifically its usage can be restricted by geographic coverage area and by use of disparate frequency bands.
QChat, an application developed for the BREW platform, is a PTT communication technology for 3G networks. QChat handsets and server software allow users to connect instantaneously with other
QChat users anywhere in the world with the push of a button. In addition, QChat enables one-to-one (private) and one-to-many (group) calls over the 3G networks.[45]
QChat uses standard Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies. VoIP is a voice delivery mechanism that uses the Internet Protocol to manage the delivery of voice information. Voice information is sent in digital form over IP-based data networks (including CDMA)
in discrete packets rather than traditional circuit-switched protocols such those used in the public
switched telephone network (PSTN).
QChat Working[edit]
QChat users on 3G wireless devices can connect to each other worldwide,
in either private or group calls, with the push of a button. QChat uses Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies to allow subscribers to communicate by using a PTT button on the handset instead of making a standard cellular call.
QChat calls are created by combining separate point-to-point connections between each IP endpoint; the process is managed by the QChat Applications Server, which is deployed on the carrier’s
IP-based Wide Area Network (WAN).
To initiate a call, a user presses the PTT button and receives an immediate indication of whether the call recipient is available. If he or she is, the caller can begin speaking immediately.
If the recipient is unavailable, the caller will simply hear a negative response tone instead of a busy signal or voicemail.[45]
QChat and Sprint[edit]
On October 16, 2006 Sprint Nextel announced
an agreement with Qualcomm to use QChat to provide high performance push-to-talk services to its customers on the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network, using CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A technology.
QChat is able to inter-operate with iDEN push-to-talk handsets on the Nextel National Network.[46]
Sprint's phones supporting QChat technology were released starting in April 2008, with a trial of business customers in Kansas and Colorado. Sprint then announced that the Nextel Direct Connect
devices powered by QChat were available in more than 40 markets in June 2008.
Supported models included:[47]
- Sanyo Pro 200 (Discontinued)
- Sanyo Pro 700 (Discontinued)
- LG LX400 (Discontinued)
- Motorola V950 (Discontinued)
- Samsung Z400 (Discontinued)
- Samsung Z700 (Discontinued)
Locations[edit]
Qualcomm offices are present in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hong
Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, Saudi
Arabia, Singapore, South
Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, United
Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.
