Qualcomm Forges Partnerships With IBM & Matsushita>
Qualcomm forges partnerships with IBM,
Matsushita
By Loring Wirbel
EE Times
(02/09/99, 2:32 p.m. EDT)
NEW ORLEANS — Qualcomm Inc. debuted its sixth-generation Code
Division Multiple Access chip set at the opening day of Wireless '99 on
Monday (Feb. 8). The chip set was developed with some significant adjunct
help from IBM Microelectronics and Matsushita Electronics Components
Co. Ltd. The RFR3100, the receive-channel portion of the MSM3100 chip
set, uses silicon germanium (SiGe) technology developed by IBM.
Separately, Qualcomm will work with Matsushita to produce CDMA Radio
Modules to help manufacturers produce advanced handset designs using the
company's Mobile Station Modem chip sets.
Don Schrock, president of Qualcomm's CDMA Technologies Division,
pointed out that MSM3100 supports data rates of 86.4 kbits/second, as well
as advanced voice recognition algorithms. The baseband chip at the heart of
the set integrates a GPS receiver and USB interface. Jeffrey Belk, vice
president of marketing at Qualcomm, said "the fact that we don't integrate
many of these features in any of our own phones yet, indicates we're serious
about getting technology out to partners."
Qualcomm's semiconductor group, formerly called the ASIC Products
Division, has been renamed the CDMA Technologies Division, reflecting a
new effort by Qualcomm to license CDMA at the algorithm, chip-set, or
subsystem level to help drive third-party adoption of the air interface. In the
past year, Qualcomm has shipped 100 million CDMA chip sets, 30 million of
which are the high-integration MSM series.
Schrock said that as Qualcomm moves to merchant chip-set offerings for its
High Data Rate (HDR) dedicated IP data service, and eventually full
CDMA2000 and 3G baseband chip sets, the company is likely to use IBM's
SiGe process technology for several of its designs, particularly as baseband
and intermediate frequency functions are combined on a single chip.
Meanwhile, the Matsushita deal will integrate Qualcomm transmit and
receive IF devices in bump chip carrier packages, with surface-mount RF
front-end chips developed at Matsushita. The Japanese company has
developed extremely small power amps and low-noise amps in recent years,
using ferroelectric thin-film technology for low dielectrics. The modules will
be offered to second-tier handset OEMs who do not have much RF
expertise, Shrock said.
On the HDR front, Qualcomm announced early trials with US West Wireless
LLC, to use HDR technology to offer 1.8-Mbit/s downstream Internet
access service to neighborhoods that cannot get Asymmetric Digital
Subscriber Line services from US West Communications Inc. Wayne Leuck,
vice president of wireless engineering technology at US West Wireless, said
that many neighborhoods served by digital loop carriers, where it is difficult to
provision ADSL, will be natural sites for using the HDR technology. Cisco
Systems Inc. works with Qualcomm to provide routing and gateway solutions
that can be used with HDR access systems.
Paul Jacobs, president of Qualcomm Consumer Products, said that the real
end game was not merely getting Qualcomm into a fixed wireless local loop
market for broadband access. Rather, the HDR system is meant to coexist
with voice channels for IS-95 and IS-95B CDMA, as well as with future
wideband CDMA channels for 3G phones. Thus, Qualcomm will encourage
carriers to build a single cellular infrastructure, including unified basestations,
for both voice services and advanced data overlay services using HDR. |
