I got this post off of Raging Bull.
I will try to find the link later.
Read the part I have in bold that pertains to ADI.
Could this be the big new alliance that ADI is going to announce? yeah I know ADI already has a relatioinship with INTC but I don't think they have it in this copacity.
In a setback for its fledging cell phone semiconductor
business, Intel is quietly backing away from the CDMA
chip set market as part of a plan to focus on new and
more promising wireless IC segments, SBN has
learned.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company entered the
IS-95-compliant chipset market for CDMA handsets
only eight months ago after agreeing to acquire
cell-phone IC specialist DSP Communications Inc. for
$1.6 billion. But Intel Corp. (stock: INTC) had little
luck in garnering design wins in CDMA, due in part to
stiff competition from the leading supplier of chip sets in
this booming business -- Qualcomm Inc. (stock:
QCOM), San Diego, analysts said.
Instead of CDMA, Intel will focus more on developing
and selling cell phone chipsets for other digital cellular
standards,such as TDMA, PDC, and third-generation
(3G) wireless, according to Ronald Smith, vice
president and general manager of Intel's Wireless
Communications and Computing Group.
"We are not focusing on the CDMA market," Smith
said in an interview at the Intel Developer Forum in San
Jose, Calif., this week. "We're still selling the PDC chip
set. We announced a TDMA chip set. We are also
interested in wideband CDMA [W-CDMA], but
[IS-95-compatible] CDMA is more of a proprietary
market."
Smith's comments were made in reference to
Qualcomm's dominant position in the CDMA chip set
market. Though Qualcomm has licensed its CDMA
chip technology to several IC vendors -- including Intel,
LSI Logic Corp. (stock: LSI), Philips Electronics NV
(stock: PHG), and PrairieComm -- the company had an
89 percent share in the worldwide IS-95-compliant,
CDMA-based chip set market in 1999, according to
Hambrecht & Quist LLC of San Francisco.
When Intel acquired DSP Communications last
October, however, it hoped to give Qualcomm a run
for its money in CDMA. At that time, Intel was
expected to leverage its vast resources and fab capacity
to grab significant market share away from a much
smaller entity in Qualcomm.
Competitors believed Intel was never a factor.
"Intel had a few design wins, but I never saw them in
the market," said Johan Lodenius, senior vice president
of marketing and product management at Qualcomm's
CDMA Technologies Division, the chip and software
arm of the company.
Now, Intel is looking for new and better opportunities
in the cell phone IC market, such as non-CDMA chip
set lines, RISC-based controllers, flash memories, and
other devices, according to Smith.
"The [cell phone] market is very robust," Smith said.
"The demand for our flash memories and other products
is also very robust."
Smith added that Intel is more bullish on a
next-generation CDMA standard called W-CDMA,
which is being endorsed by Motorola Inc. (stock:
MOT), Nokia AB (stock: NOK), NTT Corp. (stock:
NTT), and other large OEMs and carriers. In theory,
3G enables cell-phone products to obtain wireless data
at speeds up to 2 Mbits.
3G is expected to be deployed in Japan in 2001,
followed by Europe and the United States. With Japan
looking to take the lead in 3G, Intel wasted no time in
finding a partner in that nation. Last May, in fact, Intel
and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. announced a deal to
co-develop a chip set for 3G-enabled cell phones.
The company also has high hopes for a new line of
chips for cell phones, PDAs, and other products.
Introduced this week at the Intel Developer Forum, the
company's new XScale product is a new architecture
designed for low-power, handheld equipment.
Intel is also co-developing a promising line of DSPs
with Analog Devices Inc. (stock: ADI), which will be a
key part of the company's cell-phone chip strategy,
Smith said.
"[The DSP] is on schedule," Smith said. "We expect to
disclose the details later this year."
Analysts believe the DSP from the Intel/ADI duo will
be not be shipped until the end of this year.
"My guess is that Intel won't disclose anything about the
DSP until November," said analyst Will Strauss of
Forward Concepts Co., Tempe, Ariz. |
