Justin: I've taken a small, essentially speculative, position in the company, Interdigital Corporation, symbol IDC, traded on the Amex, HQ in King of Prusia, Pennsylvania so it's a U.S. company. What caught my eye is the share price...from a low of $4 to $75 this year...they make ASIC's, claim to have their own designs and patents, are working with TI, Nokia, have an office in Tokyo, and have been around apparently longer than QCOM. Roots in TDMA, now working with BCDMA for 3G apps.
Here's what they say about their technology:
InterDigital is developing advanced technology solutions that will be embedded into future mobile phones, personal digital assistants, hand held devices, etc. The Company has been extremely active in the standards process for 3G, contributing ideas and access to intellectual property. This involvement keeps InterDigital abreast of what technologies may be incorporated into the 3G standard and what types of products telecommunications equipment providers may be making in the near future.
In February 1999, InterDigital began a development project for Nokia to design specific technology building blocks for Nokia to use in future 3G products. The two companies are actively exchanging ideas and developing a process by which technology can be transferred from InterDigital to Nokia. Much of the work will occur in a virtual environment which saves time and money. Building blocks can be tested and re-tested through the use of advanced software tools before producing prototypes. InterDigital is driving the development of these new software tools. The benefits of this type of transfer are two-fold. First, the companies will save time and money by perfecting their design in a virtual environment and second, the technology is re-usable and can be changed, again in a software environment, to address different applications.
By owning the intellectual property rights to the new technology it develops with Nokia, the Company will be able to use the new technology to build chips and other components for future wireless applications and may also offer it to other companies.
In addition to the development project with Nokia, InterDigital expects to develop an ASIC for 3G that will serve a range of product applications. The ASIC will contain essential intellectual property and allow equipment manufacturers to design their own applications and build products to the 3G standard.
More to come...but this looks interesting, at least to me.
Lindy, could you tell us of the company if you've know of it? Anybody else familiar with this one, please chime in.
I've sent an email to their IR with a BIG list of questions, some of which may be answered....like, what's your relationsihip to Q, if any? |
