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Technology Stocks : The New Qualcomm - a S&P500 company -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nbfm who wrote (2836)	10/31/1999 11:01:00 PM
From: JGoren	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

sounds like new mot chip could leapfrog Qualcomm? <eom>

To: nbfm who wrote (2836)	10/31/1999 11:22:00 PM
From: ASB	Respond to of 13582

>Motorola Develops New Chip for All Types of Wireless Phones I gather this chip uses IF sampling and DSP for signal processing. It's possible to support any modulations that way but the performance will be mediocre for all of them. ASB

To: nbfm who wrote (2836)	11/1/1999 9:08:00 AM
From: slacker711	Respond to of 13582

The chip will be shipped in new Motorola cell phones by the end of next year, said Paul McAlinden, a manager in the company's Wireless Communication Division. Motorola also will sell the new chip to competitors, such as Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB, who will be able to use it to make phones that can run on any of the world's disparate cell-phone technologies. A couple of comments....I think that this was pretty widely expected, the question was when exactly the processing power would be available to do it. However, in general, I think that this is great news. If MOT succeeds in placing this chip into Nokia and Ericsson's GSM phones (as well as their own) the royalties for Qualcomm would go through the roof. Remember that MOT may have a lower royalty rate, but if the chip is placed into Nokia's GSM phones they would be paying their normal royalty rate....One question I do have is if this chip is supposed to support IS-95B or 1xrtt. Slacker

To: nbfm who wrote (2836)	11/1/1999 9:35:00 AM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

Re Motorola's new chip. It is impossible to tell from the announcement exactly what the new chip is doing. Does it just do simple baseband processing (e.g. voice coding on a DSP) for all three standards, or are they claiming to do CDMA correlation as well? If the claim is for the former only, this is interesting, but not particularly substantive. It's not that hard, and I'd be surprised if Qualcomm couldn't do the same if they perceived the market was moving in that direction. If, OTOH, they are claiming the latter, that they can do everything in CDMA, then I have two comments: 1) First, I doubt it is a DSP. I don't think the processing power is there yet to track 6 multipaths in a handset DSP, and thus the chip would be extremely uncompetitive. But if they have somehow figured out how to do everything in software (I very much doubt this), then this is indeed an important breakthrough and provides an opportunity for Motorola to take ASIC share. Note that just because it is software doesn't mean that it is simple to get it right (although it is definitely an advantage in cycle time). 2) If it isn't a pure DSP, then it must be an ASIC which contains a 'small' piece of real-estate which is dedicated to correlation. As someone has pointed out, this would make the chip expensive for GSM or TDMA alone. But also note that that makes this chip essentially like any other CDMAOne chip except that the DSP has been built to process the relatively simple GSM and NA-TDMA in addition to CDMAOne. If Qualcomm wanted to, they could probably do this today. 3) Even in the worst case, although it is true that Motorola does not have to pay license fees for ASICs, the licensed OEMs which buy them have to pay extra royalty for buying from Motorola instead of a royalty paying ASIC house. (This is a very Gates'ish tactic. Very very savvy, if a little slimy. I'm sure this move never occurred to Motorola when they signed the ASIC deal with Qualcomm, and I'll bet it pissed them off no end. The more I learn about Qualcomm, the more I realize that the Q management are, if not yet quite as successful as WG-III, at least in the same league in terms of business smarts. (No, I am not slamming either WG or Dr. J. On the contrary, I think that good business occasionally borders on the slimy, and if you can't dish it out you have a problem. The problem, as always, is knowing when it is too much.)) Clark