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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 100cfm who wrote (1512)	7/28/2000 9:55:18 AM
From: GO*QCOM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 196634

SPINCO will need to do an acquisition in order to get the GSM RF expirenced engineers.I suspect that this is in the cards and soon.Obtaining GSM capability through cross license is not enough for SPINCO to be in the fore front of all CDMA flavored 3G.IMHO

To: 100cfm who wrote (1512)	7/28/2000 8:08:26 PM
From: w molloy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 196634

>> if Spinco does in fact get the GSM x-licenses why indeed could there not be a 1x CDMA/GSM chip by next summer or sooner. Here's why not. 1. x-license buys the right to us the technology once it is created. One has to create the technology first. 2. Good CDMA RF engineers don't transition into good GSM engineers overnight. They should be in shape with prototypes by next summer. 3. Even if the RF side is sorted - I know the software side isn't. A multimode chipset will need 4 (arguably 5) major components a) Access substrata QCOM/SpinCo are historically good at this b) The network substrata This is pure GSM - SpinCo would be nuts to try to write this from scratch, and they wont. QCOM has been touring the UK in an acquisition hunt. They don't have a deal with anyone (yet) c) Application programmers interface. The API shields the handset software chaps (the MMI developers) from the complexities of the protocol. This is a weak area for QCOM, who made a dogs dinner out of this component for IS-95. A GSM API is much more complex. d) GSM Call Control state machine. This component could either form part of the MMI or the API. In my experience, most GSM chipset vendors don't supply this component, but nearly all Handset OEM's, particularly those in Taiwan (and the putative ones in China) want the chipset guys to supply it. By the time WCDMA gets to market, I think this will be offered as part of the ASIC software e) Reference design for an MMI A bigger job than you think, bu could be outsourced. a) .. e) if written from scratch, would take 100+ software guys two years to get into a state fit for type approval. b) realistically requires a partnership deal with a stack vendor, who could also help with c) and d) After the software is written and integrated on chip, then the ASIC's have to be type approved. The process from start to finish typically takes 9 months. If SpinCo was working with a partnership company like TTP, it could be done quite a bit quicker. Presumably there will be a lead customer at this point, and a lengthy series of field trials will start. These can last anywhere from 3 months to a year, then you can start serious production.