Qualcomm Inc, the world’s largest supplier of chips for mobile phones, yesterday said it is stepping up its recruitment of engineers for labs in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand for 5G devices ahead of global commercialization.
Taiwanese component and hardware manufacturers are among the world’s pioneers in taking up the new-generation mobile technology, as they are better prepared to embrace the arrival of the 5G era than they were for the 4G era, Qualcomm said.
Wistron NeWeb Corp (啟碁) and Askey Computer Corp (亞旭), a wholly owned subsidiary of Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) that makes high-end routers and networking equipment, showcased their latest 5G-enabled consumer premise equipment (CPE) powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 processor during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last week.
Photo: Lo Chien-yi, Taipei Times
HTC Corp (宏達電) unveiled its first 5G hub, rather than mobile phones as it did before, ahead of the opening of the annual show.
“The migration to 5G will be much faster than the last transition from 4G to 3G, as there is already a lot of 4G applications in use... 5G is becoming a reality now,” Qualcomm Taiwan president S.T. Liew (劉思泰) said.
“5G is not about mobile phones only. There is a lot of applications beyond mobile phones, including apps for industrial devices and more,” Liew said.
“Qualcomm is deepening its partnership with Taiwan and helping it reach out for 5G businesses,” he said.
The San Diego, California-based company has set up a 5G module research-and-design center in Taiwan, the second worldwide after the one at its headquarters, to assist local partners in solving engineering and technological issues and promote exchanges of 5G technology, he said.
The 5G center is one of three centers Qualcomm plans to open in Taiwan — the other two are a millimeter-wave testing center and a biometric sensor testing center.
The chipmaker has about 600 engineers at its local labs in Taipei and Hsinchu, a spike from 160 engineers last year.
The company plans to further increase its headcount this year, but declined to confirm a report by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News that it plans to add 200 more engineers.
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