Qualcomm Inc yesterday said it would maintain its supply chain strategy of sourcing chips from multiple foundry partners, including advanced chips from two major suppliers, to ensure a sufficient chip supply amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Qualcomm is reportedly working with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co on advanced products, such as 4-nanometer chips, for its new flagship 5G chips, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 series.
Qualcomm is sourcing chips made by mature technologies from several foundry partners, the company said.
Photo: Reuters
Alex Katouzian, general manager of Qualcomm Technologies Inc’s mobile, compute and XR business, told a virtual media briefing that the strategy helped the firm deal with a chip shortage.
Qualcomm Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm.
Addressing concerns over weakening smartphone demand amid a slowing global economy and its ripple effects, Katouzian said a transition similar to the one from 3G to 4G is taking place in the transition from 4G to 5G, adding that the 5G penetration rate would keep growing.
DIFFERENT CONDITIONS
“Obviously, we are in a slightly different circumstance with the pandemic,” Katouzian said. “We see the penetration of 5G being extremely strong... We see a continuous growth path for 5G and the handset market as well.”
The company said demand for the overall smartphone market remains strong.
“There is some slowdown obviously because of the circumstances we are going through,” Katouzian said. “But we anticipate things to pick back up, but definitely not disappearing. We see still strength in the market, for sure.”
Qualcomm’s comments followed an optimistic MediaTek Inc (聯發科) projection about the 5G trend.
MediaTek expects the 5G penetration rate to rise to 50 percent this year, compared with 30 percent last year.
However, unlike MediaTek’s conservative view about the adoption of the millimeter-wave system due to costly base station deployment, Qualcomm expects the adoption rate to rise, citing its expanding use in a wide range of devices beyond smartphones and PCs, such as wearables, vehicles and XR headsets.
WI-FI 7 ADOPTION
Qualcomm also expects the adoption of new-generation Wi-Fi 7 technology to account for 10 percent of all devices next year or in 2024.
The company is shipping Wi-Fi 7 chips to customers and expects to see end products equipped with the chips by the end of this year, Rahul Patel, general manager of Qualcomm Technologies’ connectivity, cloud and networking business, said yesterday.
“You can see the Wi-Fi 6 adoption rate and how fast the ramp was. We anticipate Wi-Fi 7 to see a similar uptick in those adoptions,” Patel said, expecting a majority of premium Android smartphones to adopt Wi-Fi 7 technology next year.
This year, global shipments of devices equipped with Wi-Fi 6 technology would rise to more than 2.3 billion, Patel said.
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