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Qualcomm COO Steve Mollenkopf talks 28nm supply, low-end market and displays
It goes without saying that it's been a good year for Qualcomm -- so good that the mobile chipmaker invited us over to its San Diego headquarters to share the story. There we met up with President and COO Steve Mollenkopf, who started off the session by reflecting on the 28nm production "issues" since mid-year. Without naming any participating foundries, Mollenkopf carefully reiterated that the supply struggled to match the "tremendous demand" of the new 28nm Krait-based products at the time, but he thinks Qualcomm will be out of that problem starting this month. "It was something that we had this year and last fiscal year, but moving forward, I don't see that to be an issue," said Mollenkopf. Judging by the increasing number of devices carrying Qualcomm's quad-core chipsets, we certainly hope this is the case.
Sharp and Qualcomm to team up for energy-efficient IGZO display venture
We already knew that Sharp's been asking around for some much-needed help recently, and now we can all breathe a sigh of relief, as Nikkei is reporting that said manufacturer has finally found a new friend to help co-develop its energy-efficient IGZO LCD panels. Set to announce as soon as Tuesday (presumably Japan time), the deal will involve Qualcomm initially throwing in five billion yen ($61 million) by the end of the year, with a double-down of another five billion yen after "sufficient progress has been made." There's no timeline yet on when (or if) a full investment would be secured, but if all goes to plan, Qualcomm will eventually hold nearly five percent of Sharp's stock, whereas Sharp will more or less get back the 10 billion yen it lost to Sony following the termination of their joint venture earlier this year. Additionally, Sharp will also share some of the IGZO magic with Qualcomm to help improve the latter's Pixtronix MEMS display technology. Not a bad way for the two companies to wrap up 2012, eh? Richard Lai contributed to this report.
Qualcomm buys Pixtronix to make for better Mirasol displays?
Qualcomm's whipped out some flipping great wadges of cash in order to snap up Pixtronix for its PerfectLight MEMS-based display tech. It reportedly cost between $175 - $200 million and is expected to be merged into the company's super-low power Mirasol-based displays. Compared to the Kyobo eReader we played with at CES, PerfectLight has a wider viewing angle (170 degree), supports full speed video playback and much better RGB modulation. Depending on how successful the marriage is, it could spell the end of the final hurdles that have hampered the widespread adoption of the technology.
