Your question on number of employees plus many other interesting points are covered in the S1, snips follow
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EMPLOYEES
As of June 2000, we had approximately 1,850 total employees, including over
900 engineers of whom approximately 120 hold Ph.D. degrees. Our success will
depend largely on our ability to recruit, train and retain highly skilled
engineering and other technical, managerial, sales and marketing personnel. The
competition for technical professionals is intense. None of our employees is
represented by a labor union, and we consider our employee relations to be good
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RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
The wireless communications industry is characterized by rapid technological
change, requiring a continuous effort to enhance existing products and develop
new products and technologies. Our success will depend to a substantial degree
upon our ability to develop and introduce in a timely fashion new products and
enhancements to our existing products that meet changing customer requirements
and emerging industry standards.
We maintain a substantial program of research and product development. As of
July 19, 2000, our research and development staff consisted of over 900
engineers, approximately 120 of whom hold Ph.D. degrees. Our research and
development expenditures in fiscal years 1997, 1998 and 1999 totaled
approximately $24 million, $56 million and $128 million, respectively. Most of
these expenditures are related to the development of CDMA technology for
wireless applications, including salaries and related costs of employees engaged
in ongoing research, design and development activities. We maintain our research
and development activities primarily at our facilities in San Diego, California,
Boulder, Colorado and Campbell, California. We are seeking to hire additional
skilled development engineers. We intend to continue to maintain a substantial
research and development program.
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FACILITIES
Our principal executive offices are located in San Diego, California, in
four buildings covering approximately 347,000 square feet in the aggregate. We
plan to lease one of these buildings directly from QUALCOMM, and occupy the
others under subleases from QUALCOMM. We also expect to lease from QUALCOMM two
buildings in Boulder, Colorado, covering a total of 73,800 square feet, and
sublease from QUALCOMM one building in Campbell, California covering 49,940
square feet. In addition, our international subsidiaries in Israel and the
United Kingdom occupy properties in those countries of approximately 53,000
square feet and 9,420 square feet, respectively.
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Lots of info on the ASICs such as
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- IMSM4100. Our iMSM4100 solution will feature dual central processing
units capable of processing computation and memory intensive applications
and will be targeted at the wireless handheld computing market. We believe
the dedication of a single complete microprocessor and greater memory to
multi-media applications will facilitate a greatly optimized solution for
high-end devices in terms of size, power and capability. The iMSM4100 will
support a large number of operating systems, including Windows CE and
Symbian, as well as Java applications.
In our sixth generation solution, the baseband semiconductor hardware
interoperates with the RFR3100 or RFR3300, IFR3300, RFT3100 and PA3100
integrated circuit set. The RFR3100 and RFR3300 converts received radio
frequency signals to intermediate frequency. The RFR3100 is dual-band capable,
operating in either cellular or PCS frequencies. The RFR3300 is tri-band
capable, operating in cellular, PCS and GPS frequencies. The IFR3300 converts
intermediate frequency signals to baseband frequency signals as well as GPS band
signals to baseband signals. The IFR3300 supports dual-mode analog cellular and
cdmaOne operation along with GPS signals. The RFT3100 converts outgoing baseband
signals to radio frequency signals and is dual-band capable, operating in either
cellular or PCS frequencies. The PA3100 comes in cellular and PCS versions and
provides power amplification in a very low-power mode of operation, providing
the handset with extended talk time.
SEVENTH GENERATION ARCHITECTURE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT AND SYSTEM SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
Our seventh generation integrated circuit and system software solutions will
be based on the following baseband semiconductors:
- MSM5110. Our MSM5110 will be a dual-mode solution that integrates 3G
cdma2000 1x and 3x. This solution will provide the benefits of 3G CDMA,
doubling wireless network voice capacity compared to cdmaOne networks.
- MSM5200. Our MSM5200 solution will use the 3G WCDMA mode.
- IMSM5500. Our iMSM5500 will be a multi-mode solution that will integrate
3G cdma2000 1x, 1xEV, and 3x standards. This solution will provide the
benefits of 3G CDMA, doubling wireless network voice capacity relative to
cdmaOne networks, while providing the 2.4 Mbps speed of 1xEV to fully
realize the convergence of the Internet and wireless technologies and
services.
In our seventh generation solution, the baseband semiconductor will
interoperate with the RFR3100, IFR3300, RFT5100 and PA5100 semiconductors. The
RFR3100 will convert radio frequency signals to intermediate frequency and is
designed to be dual-band capable, operating in either cellular or PCS
frequencies. The IFR3300 converts intermediate frequency signals to baseband
frequency signals as well as GPS band signals to baseband signals and supports
dual-mode analog cellular and CDMA operation. The RFT3100 converts baseband
signals to radio frequency signals. The RFT5100 is dual-band capable, operating
in either cellular or PCS frequencies. The PA5100 provides power amplification
in a very low-power mode of operation, providing the handset with extended talk
time. The PA5100 comes in a cellular and PCS band version.
EIGHTH GENERATION ARCHITECTURE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT AND SYSTEM SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
We are designing and developing our eighth generation of integrated circuits
and system software solutions. Our eighth generation solutions will be capable
of multi-mode, multi-band 3G CDMA and IS-95 operation in a single fully
integrated solution. We also expect that our eighth generation solutions
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will support GSM operation. We expect the integrated circuits to support
worldwide product use and more extensive feature sets.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND TEST EQUIPMENT SOLUTIONS
- CSM2000. Our CSM2000 integrated circuit is used for cdmaOne
infrastructure and test equipment. The CSM2000 is a multiple-channel,
digital baseband integrated circuit, capable of supporting up to eight
forward link channels and eight reverse link channels. Each channel
element performs searching, modulation, demodulation and Viterbi decoding.
The channel elements are chained together internally, which allows CDMA
infrastructure manufacturers who use the CSM2000 to benefit from having
only one set of transmit outputs and a reduction in the drive power
required per channel.
- CSM5000. The CSM5000 integrated circuit will be used for cdma2000 1x
infrastructure and test equipment. The integrated circuit is based on a
new architecture integrating a microprocessor for reverse link processing.
Each channel element performs searching, modulation and demodulation and
Viterbi and Turbo decoding. The CSM5000 provides capacity for up to 32
simultaneous calls on a single integrated circuit, allowing up to 64
forward link channels and 32 reverse link channels. The CSM5000 will allow
for an increase in the number of possible calls per channel card and a
significant decrease in channel card power consumption per call. This
increase in integration and reduction in power consumption will allow for
the design of significantly smaller and more versatile base station and
test equipment and reduce the overall cost of deploying 3G cdma2000 1x
networks.
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