qualcomm

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

Social networking finally reaches its most underserved niche: the hobos. Look for Tom to officially join the Hobo Nation any day now. In other news of the day, Caroline McCarthy joins us for a rollicking discussion of The Washington Post's war on spam, and Molly most likely gets herself fired from CBS and kicked off TWiT in one fell swoop. So, learn to love Caroline. She might be sticking around.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 makes date with U.S.: Black Friday for $799.99 http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/12/sony-ericsson-xperia-x1-makes-date-with-us-black-friday-for-79/… Read more

Loopt, the friend tracking software developer, has struck a licensing deal with a Qualcomm subsidiary to help lower the cost of providing location services.

The company will announce Thursday that it has signed an agreement with SnapTrack, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, to use QPoint location-based server software to provide social mapping and other advanced location services.

Location-based services are expected to generate a lot of money for carriers in the future. Already, most major mobile operators are offering some kind of location-based service, such as GPS-enabled navigation or tracking. But the service hasn't taken off in any … Read more

Updated at 11:34 a.m. PT to include Broadcom statement

A U.S. appellate court has reversed an import ban on certain cell phones with chips made by Qualcomm, ruling that the U.S. International Trade Commission overstepped its authority in a 2007 decision.

Last year, the ITC ruled that certain new models of 3G wireless handsets with Qualcomm chipsets could not be imported because they infringed on a Broadcom patent. An appellate court stayed the ban in September, pending appeal.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its decision (PDF). The appellate … Read more

Chipmaker Broadcom announced on Wednesday it is once again suing Qualcomm, claiming the company's sales and licensing practices amount to patent misuse.

The complaint was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego. According to Broadcom's claims, Qualcomm receives royalties twice for its patents by controlling the post-sale use of its already-"exhausted" wireless communications patents. Qualcomm's control over its patents constitutes misuse, Broadcom claims, and has brought harm to the industry and consumers.

The lawsuit continues a series of battles over wireless communications patents between … Read more

Chipmaker Broadcom has won the latest battle in a long patent war with Qualcomm.

On Wednesday a federal appeals court affirmed that Qualcomm is infringing on two cell phone patents. It also upheld an injunction against Qualcomm selling products with technology that infringes the two patents.

But it wasn't a total loss for Qualcomm. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Qualcomm was not infringing on one of the three patents in question. This patent relates to video compression technology.

That said, the court affirmed the judgment of infringement on two other patents. One … Read more

Qualcomm supplies the main processor for the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to run Google's Android OS. In an interview Tuesday, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs talked about the genesis of the Google phone and how his company became one of the principal players in the development of the handset.

Jacobs said he goes way back with Andy Rubin, Google's senior director of mobile platforms. "I've known Andy Rubin for a long time--from the Danger days," Jacobs said. (Rubin is co-founder and former CEO of both Danger Inc. and Android, a start-up Google acquired in 2005.) &… Read more