Qualcomm

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Qualcomm Incorporated

logo
legal form Incorporated
ISIN US7475251036
founding 1985
Seat San Diego , California ,United StatesUnited States
management
  • Paul E. Jacobs (Chairman)
Number of employees 33,800 (Sept. 24, 2017)
sales 22,291,000,000 US dollars (2017)
Branch semiconductor
Website www.qualcomm.com
As of September 24, 2017

Qualcomm headquarters in San Diego

Qualcomm Incorporated is a semiconductor manufacturer and supplier of wireless communications products based in San Diego , California . In 2013 Qualcomm was the fourth largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world after Intel , Samsung and TSMC with a single production facility in Munich.

history

Qualcomm was founded in 1985 by Irwin Jacobs and Andrew Viterbi , who founded Linkabit in 1969 . The current CEO of the company is Steve Mollenkopf.

In October 2016, Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors issued a mutual announcement that Qualcomm wanted to take over the Dutch chip manufacturer for around $ 47 billion, which would mean that Qualcomm would also have its own large manufacturing facilities. In June 2018, Qualcomm abandoned its acquisition efforts. At the same time, Qualcomm announced the start of a share buyback program with a volume of $ 30 billion.

Monopoly position

Qualcomm has an almost monopoly on baseband processors for smartphones . This led to several legal disputes with authorities and companies.

Antitrust authorities

Several antitrust agencies, including the FTC , accuse the company of unfair competition. Qualcomm is said to have levied license fees that were above the FRAND standard and require far-reaching license conditions. In order to enforce its conditions, Qualcomm is said to have threatened to cancel deliveries.

In 2015, the People's Republic of China imposed a fine of 882 million euros on Qualcomm, which Qualcomm accepted.

The South Korean antitrust authority, KFTC, penalized Qualcomm with a fine of 814 million euros. She accused Qualcomm of "licensing patents only to smartphone manufacturers, renouncing appropriate negotiation of the license conditions and not paying other manufacturers fairly for the use of their patents," as well as forcing customers "to sign patent licensing agreements in parallel to purchasing chips . " Qualcomm announced an appeal against this. Apple supported the KFTC's investigation, which sparked years of litigation between Apple and Qualcomm, which continues to this day.

In January 2018, the EU Commission imposed a fine of 997 million euros on Qualcomm (4.9% of annual sales in 2017) for abusing its market power. Competitors have been illegally excluded from the market for LTE baseband chipsets for more than five years by linking price reductions for Apple to the condition that only Qualcomm chipsets are used in all iPhone and iPad devices. Qualcomm announced on January 24th that it would appeal this to the General Court of the European Union.

In May 2019, a US District Court ruled that Qualcomm had violated the Federal Trade Commission Act . The court ruled that Qualcomm could no longer oblige chip buyers to license patents, conclude exclusive contracts with companies such as Apple and no longer refuse to issue patent licenses based on the FRAND principles . Qualcomm has announced that it will appeal.

In July 2019, the EU Commission penalized Qualcomm with a fine of 242 million euros. The company has abused its dominant position in 3G baseband chipsets by dumping the competitor Icera from the market.

Litigation with Apple

Qualcomm and Apple have been in a global legal battle since the beginning of 2017. Apple sued Qualcomm in January 2017 for payment of a billion euros for excessive license fees and retained discounts. Qualcomm in turn sued Apple worldwide for infringement of its patents.

The background to the legal dispute is as follows: Apple does not purchase microchips directly from Qualcomm, but through production partners in China. These pay license fees to Qualcomm, which they in turn invoice Apple. Apple, in turn, pays license fees to Qualcomm (in addition to the production partners). These relate to the end products. With regard to these license fees that Apple pays to Qualcomm, Qualcomm grants Apple discounts on sales of Qualcomm to Apple's production partners. After the contractual relationship, the discounts may not apply in the event of legal disputes between Apple and Qualcomm. When the South Korean antitrust authorities investigated Qualcomm, Apple supported them. Qualcomm then withheld the discounts. Apple sued Qualcomm for rebate payments and license fee refunds in January 2017. Apple accuses Qualcomm of excessive license fees and the withholding of discounts, as well as making double profits from sales and license fees. In March 2019, a Californian court ruled that Apple's claim against Qualcomm existed and that it was still open for a billion euros.

Qualcomm in turn sued Apple worldwide for illegal use of its patents, including in Germany. On December 20, 2018, Qualcomm obtained a ban on the sale of the iPhone 7, iPhone 8 and iPhone X in Germany against Apple at the Munich Regional Court due to infringement of a European patent on power supply for electrical amplifiers. Qualcomm triggered this provisionally enforceable sales ban on January 3, 2019 by depositing a security deposit of 1.34 billion euros. Five more lawsuits Qualcomms against Apple for patent infringement, including four lawsuits on Spotlight & Search and Siri , were dismissed by the Munich Regional Court. The Mannheim Regional Court dismissed another lawsuit for patent infringement . On March 27, 2019, it was announced that Apple could face a ban on the sale of some iPhones in the United States as part of another patent litigation.

numbers

Business and employee development (respective fiscal year)
year Sales
in billions of US $
Balance sheet profit
in billion US $
Employees
2005 5.673 2.143 9,300
2006 7.526 2,470 11,200
2007 8,871 3.303 12,800
2008 11,142 3.160 15,400
2009 10.387 1,592 16,100
2010 10.982 3.247 17,500
2011 14,957 4,260 21,200
2012 19.121 6.109 26,600
2013 24,866 6.853 31,000
2014 26,487 7.967 31,300
2015 25.281 5.271 33,000
2016 23,554 5.705 30,500
2017 22.291 2,466 33,800
2018 22.611 −4.964 35,400
2019 24,273 4.386 37,000

Products

Processors

Snapdragon from Qualcomm

Qualcomm has developed the SoCs of the Snapdragon range for mobile phones and tablet computers . The processors are manufactured by the Taiwanese contract manufacturer TSMC , among others . As one of three companies, Qualcomm also developed a server processor based on the ARM architecture , the Centriq 2400 .

Cellular

Qualcomm developed digital cellular technology based on CDMA ; the first version was standardized as IS-95 . There have been newer variations with the same scheme since its development, such as IS-2000 and 1x-EVDO . Qualcomm formerly manufactured CDMA2000 cell phones and radio stations. Qualcomm sold its radio station business to Ericsson and its wireless manufacturing to Kyocera, and today focuses on developing and licensing wireless technologies and selling ASICs that implement them.

Wireless communication (short distance)

By acquiring Atheros , Qualcomm acquired a leading developer of WLAN chips, who also developed chips for other radio applications such as Bluetooth and GPS. In 2014 Qualcomm bought the British company Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), a formerly leading supplier of Bluetooth chips. This purchase gave Qualcomm the know-how and existing distribution channels of CSR. In 2009, CSR took over SiRF , a formerly leading manufacturer of chipsets for GPS receivers. This also made Qualcomm a leading supplier of GPS chipsets.

OmniTRACS

Qualcomm's first products are the OmniTRACS satellite communication and location system, which is used by freight forwarding companies and others in need of digital radio communication. You need a Viterbi decoder for this . In Europe, the system is marketed under the name EutelTRACS, transmits on a frequency of 10 to 14 GHz and has been in operation since 1991.

The company OmniTRACS® was at 2013 Vista Equity Partners sold. Astrata acquired the European business in 2014 .

Projects

Other Qualcomm projects include the development of the Globalstar satellite system (a joint venture with Loral Space & Communications) and a digital cinematography joint venture with Technicolor . Qualcomm developed BREW ( Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless ) as a platform for phones. Qualcomm managed the now discontinued Eudora email program .

In 2009 Qualcomm founded the subsidiary Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC) for the development of open source software for mobile communications.

Qualcomm is one of the first major members of the FIDO Alliance , which has been developing the Universal Second Factor (U2F) industry standard for generally applicable two-factor authentication since 2013 .

Others

Web links

Commons : Qualcomm  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b Leadership Qualcomm.
  2. a b Annual Report 2017
  3. Golem: Qualcomm's only production site is now in Munich
  4. Jürgen Kuri: Qualcomm gives up NXP takeover. In: Heise online . July 26, 2018 .
  5. a b US trade commission sued chip company Qualcomm. In: Heise online . 18th January 2017 .
  6. ^ Start of the process between Qualcomm and US competition officials. In: heise online. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  7. FTC: Qualcomm is said to have forced Apple to an exclusive contract. In: Golem. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  8. China's antitrust watchdogs punish chip manufacturer Qualcomm. In: heise online. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  9. Achim Sawall: South Korea: Qualcomm is supposed to pay billions again. In: Golem. December 28, 2016, accessed November 6, 2017 .
  10. Qualcomm: South Korean Cartel Office imposes massive penalty. In: heise online. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  11. Qualcomm: South Korean Cartel Office imposes massive penalty. In: heise online. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  12. a b heise online: US judge: Qualcomm owes Apple open billions in discount payments. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  13. EU imposes billions of dollars on Apple supplier Qualcomm. In: Spiegel Online , January 24, 2018
  14. EU antitrust proceedings: Apple supplier Qualcomm is expected to pay a fine of just under a billion euros. In: heise online. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  15. Joel Hruska: Qualcomm Ruled a Monopoly, Found in Violation of US Antitrust Law. In: Extreme Tech. May 23, 2019, accessed on May 29, 2019 .
  16. Antitrust law: Commission imposes a fine of EUR 242 million on US chip manufacturer Qualcomm for predatory pricing. In: ec.europa.eu. July 18, 2019, accessed July 18, 2019 .
  17. Apple vs. Qualcomm: "I could hardly stop shaking my head reading the complaint". Mac & i, January 28, 2017
  18. a b heise online: Apple vs. Qualcomm: "I could hardly stop shaking my head reading the complaint". Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  19. a b c heise online: US judge: Qualcomm owes Apple open billions in discount payments. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  20. by Stefan Beiersmann on January 23, 2017, 7:37 a.m .: Qualcomm considers Apple's claim for damages to be insubstantial. January 23, 2017, accessed March 27, 2019 .
  21. by Bernd Kling on January 24, 2018, 5:03 p.m .: Qualcomm - EU imposes a cartel fine of 1 billion euros. January 24, 2018, accessed March 27, 2019 .
  22. by Stefan Beiersmann on January 23, 2017, 7:37 a.m .: Qualcomm considers Apple's claim for damages to be insubstantial. January 23, 2017, accessed March 27, 2019 .
  23. LG Munich I: Qualcomm can prevent the sale of older iPhones in a patent dispute. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  24. ^ LG Munich I: Defeat for Qualcomm in Munich patent proceedings against Apple. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  25. ^ LG Munich: Four lawsuits against Apple function "Siri & Search" rejected. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  26. LG Mannheim rejects the patent lawsuit of the chip manufacturer Qualcomm against Apple. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  27. Patent dispute with Qualcomm: Apple threatens to stop imports of iPhones in the USA . In: Spiegel Online . March 27, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 27, 2019]).
  28. QUALCOMM Revenue 2006-2018 | QCOM. Retrieved October 21, 2018 .
  29. Company profile . Retrieved October 21, 2018 .
  30. Ronald Tiefenthäler: Qualcomm: TSMC cannot deliver enough Snapdragon S4 SoCs. In: Notebookcheck.com. April 20, 2012, accessed March 15, 2013 .
  31. Christof Windeck: Server processors - Qualcomm Centriq 2400 attacks Intel Xeon. In: Heise online . 9th November 2017 .
  32. Christof Windeck: Qualcomm swallows British chip developer CSR. In: Heise online . 15th October 2014 .
  33. ^ Vista Equity Partners Completes Acquisition of Omnitracs. Omnitracs Announces Agreement to Acquire Roadnet Technologies. ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: omnitracs.com , November 25, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.omnitracs.com
  34. Astrata buys Qualcomm Europe. In: eurotransport.de , February 3, 2014
  35. eudora.com ( Memento from September 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (former website)
  36. Mirko Dölle: Qualcomm founds open source subsidiary. In: Heise online . October 27, 2009 .