Future sustainable growth of Qualcomm Inc (QCOM) is all set to come from its state-of-the-art next-generation Snapdragon technology platform. A major initiative of Qualcomm is the convergence of mobile computing with its Snapdragon solutions. These chipsets have been designed for pocket-sized portable computing devices.  This platform enables phone manufacturers to develop high-speed and more power efficient smart-phones and smart-books. We believe diversification into the mobile computing market was necessary for Qualcomm due to lukewarm growth of the company’s ordinary mobile phone chipset market. Massive growth of smart-phones may make up for these losses.  As of now, over 15 mobile device manufacturers are developing more than 30 Snapdragon-based products. Several leading software developers have started writing applications for mobile operating system, multimedia player, social networking, and productivity development tools based on the Snapdragon platform.  Acer Inc, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and LG Electronics Inc are the ...

Qualcomm Inc (QCOM) is all set to start selling chipsets for smart-books from the next quarter onward. The company is the largest developer of digital mobile chipsets based on CDMA wireless technology. This new venture into the smart-book market will be a vertical diversification for the company. A smart-book is a pocket digital assistant (PDA) that functions like a mobile phone but resembles a small-size notebook with full keyboards. The chipset market for computer is primarily dominated by Intel Inc (INTC). Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Texas Instruments Inc (TXN) are other major players. Qualcomm has developed smart-book chipsets based on its state-of-the-art Snapdragon platform technology. A path-breaking initiative of the company is the convergence of mobile computing with the next-generation Snapdragon platform. These chipsets have been designed for pocket-sized portable computing devices. Using Snapdragon chipsets, the consumers will no ...

Cymer delivers EUV light source, first tool from ASML Holding in 2010   After several years of development, Cymer Inc. (CYMI) shipped the first fully integrated laser-produced plasma (LPP) Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography source to ASML Holdings NV (ASML). This is a major breakthrough in semiconductor design tools, with wide implications for semiconductor manufacturing over the next decade.   UV light is basically electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength shorter than that of visible light and longer than that of x-rays. These light sources are of particular importance in excimer lasers used for semiconductor manufacturing, where light passes through a photomask to imprint patterns therein onto a photoresist-coated silicon wafer.   An LPP EUV light source currently produces light at 13.5nm wavelength, which is 15x shorter than existing technologies. In an LPP EUV source, microscopic droplets of molten tin are fired through a vacuum chamber and individually tracked ...