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To: wanna_bmw who wrote (173388)	3/8/2003 6:36:44 AM
From: rkral	Respond to of 186894

wanna_bmw, re "Your links seem to suggest that some of the radio circuitry is missing. That doesn't seem to me as something particularly expensive to add, as opposed to adding flash and SRAM separately." That may be true. I had forgotten the QCOM chipset required external NAND flash memory and Low-Power Synchronous Dynamic RAM ("LP-SDRAM"). So to have an apples-to-apples cost comparison, we need to (1) add flash and SDRAM prices to the QCOM MSM6300 chipset price, and (2) add radio circuitry prices to the Intel PXA800F price. Two chips of the 4-chip MSM6300 chipset are the "radio circuitry". re "The reference software resides entirely in on-chip flash memory. It implements the physical layer and protocol layers 1, 2, and 3 required for full phase 2+ GSM/GPRS Class 12 functionality. Maybe you can tell me if the above meets your description of a multi-mode phone." Each mode in cellular telephone terminology is a different Radio Transmission Technology ("RTT"). GSM/GPRS, CDMA, and W-CDMA are each a different RTT. Judging by acronyms, one might believe CDMA and W-CDMA are the same technology. But they aren't, because very little of the protocol stack is the same IMHO. The protocol stack implements the technology. Its a methodology that breaks down the overall task into smaller sub-tasks. The physical layer is the sub-task closest to the physical medium, in this case, air. That doesn't preclude physical components between the physical layer of the protocol stack and the physical medium, such as an antenna. And "class 12"? That's one possible configuration of GSM/GPRS. If all elements that determine "class" are implemented in software, this could be changed quite easily. re "How much does Qualcomm charge for their CPU, flash, SRAM, and DSP chips?" I have not seen published prices for QCOM's chipsets (excluding flash & SRAM, but including the major portion of the radio circuitry). For the latest quarter, total revenue was $710 million for shipments of approximately 29 million MSMxxxx chipsets. (The percentage of revenues due to these chipsets? The majority, by far. Northwards of 80% would be my guess. Let's say it is 100%, since the MSM6300 is probably priced higher than the average MSMxxxx chipset.) That puts the MSM6300 chipset at a guesstimated $25 (for unknown quantity) without flash and SDRAM .. versus the Intel AXP800F at $35 for 10K pieces without radio circuitry. That could be a good horse race. But recall the multi-mode cellphone topic precipitated this discussion. The MSM6300 supports two RTTs, GSM/GPRS and CDMA. The AXP800F supports just GSM/GPRS. Regards, Ron