It's the Beginning of Boom Time for 3G and 4G Semiconductor Chip Vendors - EE Herald

It's the Beginning of Boom Time for 3G and 4G Semiconductor Chip Vendors
EE Herald

March 1, 2010

Year 2010 is just the beginning of good times for semiconductor chip vendors serving the broadband wireless market of 3G, 4G networks. Market researcher Instat has come out with a report on LTE chipsets. The some of the points in the report are,

• By 2013, the total value of global end-use device silicon will exceed US$2 billion, but still be early in the growth cycle.
• Much of the success in silicon will be made in low-noise amplifiers, power amplification, analog-to-digital conversion, SAW filters, and battery-life.
• LTE RF solutions will have to have transceiver diversity because many different channel spectra will have to be supported. Most devices entering the LTE market will be dual-mode.
• The "LTE-dedicated" silicon BOM for mobile handsets will be slightly over US$125 in 2011 and decline by nearly 30% by 2013.

Instat states LTE is a great and truly evolutionary communications platform and LTE will become the dominant 4G technology. The LTE deployment as per Instat is going to be gradual and protracted. The semiconductor manufacturers utilizing this opportunity as per Instat includes Broadcom, Infineon and Qualcomm, and new companies such as Altair Semiconductor, Beceem, BitWave, Comsys, Sequans and Wavesat.

"Leading 3G baseband chipsets providers will not necessarily keep their leadership in LTE," says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. "The changes in platforms and technologies are disruptive enough to create major competitive shifts."