Qualcomm strikes Siemens 3G chips deal

Siemens has chosen Qualcomm as its second major supplier of chipsets for 3G phones based on the W-CDMA standard.

The San Diego-based provider of mobile phone building block technology has trumpeted the deal as its most important win in Europe so far. Qualcomm is known for pioneering second-generation CDMA technology and has so far only made 3G inroads in Asia and the US.

Enrico Salvatori, Qualcomm VP operations for Europe, said the deal shows his company's "technical solution and business model are applicable in all markets" and called Siemens "a very major European customer" - the largest the company has.

Qualcomm is also happy because Siemens is a major provider of network infrastructure and would want testing to show chipsets work across all sorts of networks. Upcoming Qualcomm offerings will address technologies with speeds either side of 3G known as EDGE and HSDPA.

Qualcomm supplies chipsets to around two dozen vendors globally. The company's founder and CEO, Dr Irwin Jacobs, has stated that the vendor would like to command around 50 per cent of the global W-CDMA chipset market, though fierce competition is likely from other well-known names.

Siemens is also happy to work with various companies. Its existing 3G handsets are based on chips from Motorola, a Siemens spokesman said. He didn't say when handsets based on the Qualcomm components are expected to be available or which types of device they will be, though a roll out in the first half of next year seems likely.

Qualcomm already supplies the technology upon which various 3G datacards using W-CDMA are based, such as those sold by Vodafone.