In a relentless competition against rivals including Qualcomm, Nvidia and Media in the smartphone chipset market, Broadcom's mobile solutions have found their way into the supply chains of Samsung Electronis' Galaxy Grand Duos and Galaxy S II Plus, and the company's reference designs for smartphones have been adopted by a number of branded vendors in China.
Robert Rango, executive vice president and general manager of the mobile and wireless group at Broadcom, talked with Digitimes recently on his view about the prospects of the smartphone industry as well as the company's challenges and opportunities in today's mobile solution market.
Q: What strategies have been implemented at Broadcom aiming to catch up with Qualcomm and MediaTek in the smartphone solution market?
A: I don't think that we are lagging behind MediaTek in the handset sector, although the Taiwan-based chipset vendor has been doing well in the China market. But our solutions have been adopted by Samsung Electronics and we have been a long-term partner with Nokia, and such tie-ups have enabled us to ship our handset solutions to markets around the globe, including areas outside China. Taking Samsung's Galaxy Grand Duos for example, with the exception of memory parts, display and battery, all chips used in the model are supplied by Broadcom.
At Broadcom, we boast an array of very competitive integrated connectivity solutions, with our Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM baseband, NFC and GPS chips being widely adopted by related industries; and our existing clients can naturally extend the use of our connectivity solutions to mobile chips to enable developments of smartphone models for the mass market or high-end segment with different price tags.
Q: Can you talk about the progress of the development of reference design for smartphones at Broadcom?
A: Broadcom has acquired a R&D team in China which is now focusing on the development of reference designs that will dedicate to handset clients in the country. The reference designs can significantly reduce R&D investment as well as shorten time to market; the adoption of Broadcom's reference designs will enable mobile phone makers with a R&D team of 45-60 persons to complete the design of one smartphone model within one month, compared to the need of a 300-member team and a workload of three months for the completion of the same job in the past.
At present, a total of 44 mobile devices are being developed using Broadcom's reference designs, and this indicates that the adoption of our reference designs by our clients in China is growing significantly.
Q: How would you assess the competition among operating systems for smartphones? Would Broadcom support Windows Phone, BlackBerry, or other platforms?
A: Our chips support a variety of operating systems, but the problem is that most clients are now looking for those mainly supporting Android as, after all, the Android is free of charge and is easy to customize, and the strongest growth momentum those clients have seen is coming from the Android handset sector. While we have also seen some other vendors such as Facebook and Firefox who are pushing for the launch of more Linux-based open systems, the impact of such efforts to the overall smartphone market still remains to be seen.
Q: More and more handset makers including Apple, Samsung and Huawei are developing mobile chips in house. Would such a development affect chipset solution vendors such as Broadcom?
A: The production of smartphone needs a comprehensive platform that can optimize SoCs, connectivity chips and operating system. Although some mobile phone makers are licensed by ARM to develop their own application processors, or by Imagination Technologies to develop graphics chips, or to make LTE modems in house, they cover only a small part of the mobile platform. Broadcom is the one out of the 2-3 vendors that is capable of offering complete platform solutions and that is why some handset makers have continued to cooperate with Broadcom even though they make some chips of their own.
Q: How would you view the smartphone industry now that the differentiation among smartphones is becoming smaller and smaller and the pace of innovation of the industry is slowing down?
A: While the chance is low for the smartphone industry to undergo revolutionary changes in the next few years, it will continue to evolve forward. More and more smart devices are likely to enter into the market in such forms as smart watches and smart glasses, which a number of vendors have been developing. Broadcom's mobile chips, which are low-power consumption and support the latest connectivity solutions, will also head into those new application segments.
(The interview is translated from Chinese.)
Robert Rango, executive vice president and general manager of Broadcom's mobile and wireless group
Photo: Michael Lee, Digitimes, April 2013
Article translated by Steve Shen
