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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnG who wrote (32215)	6/12/1999 3:56:00 PM
From: Valueman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

The Nokia 6185 is finally available from Sprint PCS after a Q software fix-up.

To: JohnG who wrote (32215)	6/12/1999 4:57:00 PM
From: w molloy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

>> there appears to be something extremely difficult about making the CDMA ASICS. << No. It is extremely difficult to design them. >>>One could postulate that there are very few foundries on earth that can do so efficiently and achieve the highest chip yields. It appears that with INTEL and IBM, Q may have the top two sewed up. <<< Your postulate is incorrect. Making them isn't such a big problem, but their are tradeoffs. Once you have designed your CDMA bits, you have to figure out how you want to fabricate them. The main question is - can I put everything onto one chip? One chip solutions are desirable because it makes the manufacture of the final device(i.e the 'phone) cheaper. However, the more you cram onto a single piece of silicon, the lower the yield. The other decision to make is what process to use. The smaller the lithography, the smaller the chip, and more power efficient. To be able to utilise these new processes again is a design problem. That is why QCOM et al pay their top ASIC chaps huge gobs of money. Many companies use outside fabs to implement their ASICS. The problem faced by QCOM (and CNXT,LSI, VLSI, DSPC etc) is getting scheduled into a foundary that has proven yields for the process of choice.