Qualcomm is aiming for growth by moving to address the consumer electronics market with its Snapdragon platform, announced last week, which will offer processing power teamed with wireless connectivity.
“We’ve been solely focused on wireless, but we’re looking at other markets now for our growth,” Terry Yen, senior director marketing at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, told EW. “One of the things we want to do is to take a look at the consumer electronics market space.”
Snapdragon uses the Scorpion 1GHz microprocessor paired with 128 bit single instruction multiple data capability and a 600MHz DSP.
“This device is an integrated piece of silicon that will marry the processing power necessary in everyday consumer electronic devices - iPods, PSP - with the connectivity of the highest end mobile devices,” said Yen. “This is going to have HSDPA and HSUPA, GSM, GPRS, WLAN and Bluetooth.”
Yen said Snapdragon “comes in a package that will fit in an iPod nano” and would have power consumption that will allow a battery-powered laptop to operate for 24 hours.
“We want to get this product out there - it’ll be sampling Q3 2007 - and we want device developers to look and say ‘hey, what can we do with this power and capabilities’?” said Yen.