Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips get a lot of attention, and rightfully so considering that they power a majority of high end Android devices, but there are definitely other players out there. NVIDIA comes to mind, but they haven’t had a major design win since the Nexus 7.
And then there’s Broadcom, who spends almost nothing on marketing, yet is responsible for powering some of Samsung’s newest devices, including the 5 inch Galaxy Grand and the Galaxy S II Plus.
According to Broadcom Executive Vice President Robert Rango, who was recently interviewed by the Taiwanese supply chain website DigiTimes, the company is betting big on China. They “acquired a R&D team” in the country that will allow small teams to design and ship a smartphone in just one month. Let me say that again: one month.
What used to take 300+ people over 3 months to do now takes just 50 guys and 30 days.
When asked about MediTek, Robert says he thinks Broadcom isn’t “lagging behind” them, which is a strange claim since nearly every smartphone I see being announced in China uses a MediaTek chip, but hey, maybe he knows something I don’t.
