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

To: Jim Mullens who wrote (130254)	7/21/2003 9:55:08 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

It only takes use of one QCOM patent to trigger royalties. The only exception, it seems to me, would be where QUALCOMM and the other company have a cross licensing agreement. One issue that has been alluded to but not really discussed is the difficulty of making a chip that really works well, even when there is a licensing agreement. The more experience a company has in designing and manufacturing its products, the more difficult it is for a newcomer to design into its own product what might be called "good practices." These chips are getting so complex that one seemingly minor change in design could have huge implications. QUALCOMM's zero intermediate frequency technology is one of the strong points of its 6000 series chips because it reduces physical size and results in lower current requirements. As new handset models incorporate more and more features, especially camera phones, battery life becomes a limiting factor if the total phone size is to remain small. The difficulty of producing a superior performing chip that competes well with the dominant producer is not a new story. Just look at all the problems that Intel's competitors have. Art