Samsung to make Qualcomm chips

Korean vendor Samsung will become one of Qualcomm’s silicon chipset manufacturers under a new agreement, the companies announced late Tuesday.

Samsung has signed a foundry agreement to press silicon integrated circuits for Qualcomm’s lines of Mobile Station Modem (MSM) CDMA and wideband CDMA chipsets. Qualcomm is a “fabless” chipset makers, meaning it creates the core architecture and design of its chipsets but not the fabrication plant, or fab. Qualcomm contracts with several fabs to press the silicon wafers themselves using complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process technology.

"Our foundry agreement with Samsung will provide an additional source of supply and assist us in our strategy aimed to ensure capacity to support existing and anticipated business growth in both CDMA and WCDMA markets," said Sanjay Jha, president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, in a statement.

The agreement, however, puts Samsung in a unique position as it is one of the few CDMA vendors that still produces its own CDMA chipsets for phones and base stations through a licensing agreement through Qualcomm. While many vendors produce WCDMA and GSM chipsets, most CDMA handset and infrastructure manufacturers buy their silicon directly from Qualcomm. Samsung would be using its plant to make its own CDMA and WCDMA chips for its product lines as well chipsets for Qualcomm, which it would in turn sell to Samsung’s competitors.

The companies did not disclose the value of the deal, nor how many or which chipsets Samsung would make.