qualcomm

Has the era of the 1GHz smartphone arrived? It has for Toshiba, which has tapped Qualcomm's new Snapdragon silicon.

The Toshiba TG01 Windows Mobile phone was unveiled Tuesday, according to reports. Based on Windows Mobile 6.1, it is designed to take on the iPhone 3G.

Only 9.9mm thick, it uses a 4.1-inch WVGA 800 x 480 384k pixel resistive touch screen and comes with support for 3G HSPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and assisted-GPS.

The TG01 is slated to be available in Europe this summer. The price, at this time, has not been disclosed. (Acer and Asus are … Read more

Though Apple has yet to offer built-in 3G on MacBooks, pairing them up with phones like the Blackberry Storm provides a decent wireless workaround.

In December, I took the MacBook Air (i.e., the designers of the Air) to task for what I thought was a serious technological gaffe: not building 3G into the Air. At the very least, I thought 3G should have been included in the October refresh of the Air.

But I'm not going to rehash those gripes here (or repeat Apple's likely reasons for not including 3G). This time I bring good tidings.

After … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Qualcomm on Tuesday said it has acquired "certain graphics and multimedia technology assets" from Advanced Micro Devices' handheld business.

The acquisition was only for $65 million, so we're not talking a huge deal, but what used to constitute AMD's handheld business is off the chipmaker's books, as it focuses on its core PC and graphics semiconductor markets.

Qualcomm says it will take AMD's graphic assets and intellectual property, and integrate it with its system on a chip products. Qualcomm has offered jobs to the … Read more

Qualcomm has picked up handheld assets from Advanced Micro Devices, including graphics chip technology.

San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm and Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD announced on Tuesday that Qualcomm has acquired graphics and multimedia technology assets, intellectual property and resources that were "formerly the basis of AMD's handheld business."

The acquisition includes "graphics cores that we have been licensing for several years," said Steve Mollenkopf, executive vice president of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, in a statement.

The agreement provides Qualcomm with "vector graphics and 3D graphics technologies and IP," AMD … Read more

Correction, 1:30 p.m. PST: This story misspelled the last name of a Qualcomm director of product management. His name is Manjit Gill.

Qualcomm's four-year, $350 million effort to design a chip that goes into small notebooks and handhelds will come to fruition next year when device makers deliver products based on the Snapdragon processor.

I spent Friday morning at Qualcomm discussing the San Diego company's quest to build a processor for very small, very lightweight notebooks--what the Intel camp calls a Netbook.

Though Qualcomm's prototype looks like a Netbook on the outside, the Snapdragon … Read more

Apple's MacBook Air doesn't live up to its wireless promise.

To quote an Apple tagline, "without wires, you're free to go anywhere." But the wireless part of the "air" play on words fails to deliver. (The other half its light-as-air weight: here it does deliver.)

As I've written in the past, I like the Air. I got one in February as soon as it was available at retail and have been pleased with the performance, screen, keyboard, build, and, until recently, the battery life (which has dwindled to under an hour). Of … Read more

Move aside, Intel. New chips from Advanced Micro Devices, Freescale Semiconductor, and Qualcomm may redefine the Netbook and ultraportable market next year.

To date, Intel has pretty much defined Netbook performance and features with the popular Atom processor. "We're very comfortable with our product leadership but we don't take anything for granted. And we expect competition in this space. Stay tuned," said Bill Calder, an Intel representative.

Stay tuned indeed. As the Netbook market grows, other chip heavyweights want a piece of the pie. Netbooks--which typically weigh less than 3 pounds and have screens under 11 … Read more

iSuppli releases its preliminary 2008 top-20 chip rankings as semiconductor suppliers fall upon hard times.

Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, and STMicroelectronics occupy the top five positions, while Advanced Micro Devices was No. 11 and Nvidia No. 20 in the ranking.

Memory chip manufacturers are some of the hardest hit. South Korea-based Hynix, which dropped from No. 6 to No. 9, and Micron Technology (No. 16) are both restructuring. Micron is reducing staff and shutting down facilities, while Hynix seeks outside investors.

Micron is expected to post a 9.2 percent revenue decrease in 2008 and Hynix's revenue should … Read more

Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm has developed a new, low-cost computing platform that it hopes will provide an alternative to Windows-based PCs in parts of the world where traditional broadband connections aren't available.

The new platform called Kayak will be based on Qualcomm's dual-core MSM7 series chipsets. Eventually, the design could also include Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets, which offer both GSM-based and CDMA-based 3G technologies.

Qualcomm hopes the Kayak platform can fill a much needed niche between Windows PCs and smart phones when it comes to providing Internet-enabled devices in the developing world. PCs or laptops are often too expensive … Read more