Online information source for semiconductor professionals

Qualcomm provided a glimpse into its 65nm device ramp today, during a financial analyst conference held in London, England. Dr Sanjay Jha, Qualcomm's Executive Vice President and President of CDMA Technologies Group, highlighted the fabless company's plans to roll out new WCDMA devices next year on a low power consuming 65nm process. The company plans to introduce three key device platforms at the 65nm node in 2006 for WCDMA applications. Under the "Value Platform" Qualcomm will launch its 6245 WEDGE device in 2Q06. In the same period a "Multimedia Platform" device, 6260 carrying HSDPA technology will be launched, while in the 3Q06 period the company plans to introduce an "Enhanced Platform" device dubbed 6280-65 HSDPA, all at the 65nm node.

Jha noted that all three platforms were expected to ramp in high volumes due to expected demand and that foundry qualification had gone well with "good yields," stated Jha.

He also acknowledged that major customers had still not forgotten the chipset short supply the company experienced in 2004 and has ensured adequate supply of the latest chips by securing and qualifying "multiple sources for additional capacity," which includes long time foundry partner TSMC and now IBM.

Another new product by Qualcomm, the "Scorpion" mobile microprocessor core will also be launched soon using the low power 65nm process, that has also enabled the company to claim it is the best core in this market with a 16X advantage over the competition on a performance per milliwatt benchmark.

Qualcomm believes that the market for CDMA/WCDMA equipped mobile phones will increase between 26 and 36 percent in 2006, with the mid-point unit figures at 262 million mobile phones.

In early October 2005, TSMC revealed that it had started "CyberShuttle" prototype production runs for its 65nm process technology that included a low power process platform. Altera, Broadcomm and Freescale were mentioned as early shuttle runners.