2011 will likely see the release of a more powerful series of smart phones thanks to a new Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm. And of course there will be another set of Apple iPhones and iPads next year, which will have their own ARM processor, most probably running at faster speeds than the 1GHz at present.

The company will ship the dual-core QSD8672 chip with CPU cores running at up to 1.5GHz, said Mark Frankel, vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. The chip could go into smartphones, tablets and low-cost laptops, he said.

Qualcomm, the largest wireless chipmaker, has said the mobile phone industry had reached a "transformative stage" as it reported third-quarter sales and profits ahead of expectations.

The talk of a Samsung-Infineon deal surfaced in German publication Manager Magazine but neither firm would comment. Two years ago, Samsung greatly extended its purchasing of cellphone chips from Infineon, largely at the expense of Qualcomm.

Now, many or all the famous (Nvidia, Qualcomm, Marvel...) TSMC customers already use ARM designs with TSMC, but this deal might make things easier for smaller ones. In short: expect to see ARM continue to proliferate on the mobile computing market.

Qualcomm has entered into a collaborative agreement with the global consortium of chipmakers. As the first fabless chip company to join Sematech, Qualcomm plans to participate in a high-level engagement to assess the feasibility of technologies that are designed to extend Moore's Law.

Anteryon, which makes wafer-based, miniature optical modules for mobile phone cameras and laser projection, has drawn investment from Qualcomm.

Qualcomm has announced the opening of a new, multi-million dollar R&D center in Shanghai, which will focus on advancing chipset solutions to better address China's increasing need for high quality and affordable 3G handsets with customized features and time-to-market advantages.

Under the terms of the royalty bearing agreement, Qualcomm has granted CK Telecom a worldwide patent license to develop, manufacture and sell WCDMA and TD-SCDMA subscriber units and modem cards/modules.

Qualcomm has reported profits of US$774 million for the second quarter of its fiscal 2010, compared with losses of US$289 million a year ago. The company suggested it might fall short of Wall Street's expectations for the current quarter.

Qualcomm has updated its financial guidance for the second fiscal quarter ending March 28, 2010. Revenues are estimated at US$2.55-2.65 billion compared to its prior guidance range of US$2.40-2.60 billion. Diluted EPS is now expected to be US$0.56-0.58 compared to its prior guidance range of US$0.49-0.53.

Emily Gin Kilpatrick, director of corporate communications for Qualcomm, issued a statement offering condolences to the man's family, friends and colleagues. She declined to say what position the man held, saying that "we don't provide information about our employees."

Globalfoundries will initially provide Qualcomm with access to 45nm LP and 28nm LP technologies with an intended collaboration on future advanced process nodes.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is likely to make CDMA2000 baseband chips which Qualcomm designs for the worldwide-version 3G iPhones, according to industry executives.