Interdigital: The Apple deal

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author So far, I have presented an argument for why Interdigital stands to gain from the iPhone. Early this fall, the company signed a 7-year licensing agreement with Apple. Here is my interpretation of the license –

Interdigital: Inside the iPhone

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author I concluded the last article in this series postulating that Interdigital will stand to gain not only from the licensing of essential patents to Apple but also from individual iPhone sales. To reason this out, let us take a quick look at the Infineon chipset in the current iPhone design-

Interdigital: The Infineon Alliance

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author In the last article in this series, we took a brief look at Interdigital’s new 3G ASIC venture and the thought process behind these moves. In this piece, I wish to focus on the company’s alliance with Infineon, the German semiconductor company, whose latest claim to wireless fame is its

Read Full Article »

Atheros and the u-Nav gambit

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author I have, so far, refrained from expressing my opinions about my company, Atheros Communications (ATHR). But yesterday, we announced that we will acquire u-Nav Microelectronics for $54 million that includes $15.4 million in cash and 1.28 million shares of Atheros common stock. This news has forced me out of my

Read Full Article »

Marvell: Intel Deal Intelligent?

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author Marvell (MRVL) is a Santa Clara based semiconductor company with a wide footprint ranging from storage, communications and consumer products. It was started in 1995 by Sehat Sutardja, his wife Weili Dai and his brother Pantas Sutardja. iPhone fans will know this company as the provider of its Wi-Fi capabilities.

Interdigital: A strategic shift

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author In my introduction to Interdigital (IDCC), I had talked about the company’s past. As we saw, despite a visionary beginning, IDCC is yet to find its place in the wireless world. Instead, it has taken an exclusive IP licensing route making money off lawsuits so far. A key reason for

Read Full Article »

QualComm: The Aftermath

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author In the article “QualComm: Legal Battles Galore”, we reviewed the lawsuits that the company faced and also traced their genesis. In this article, we will look into the impact of these law-suits on QualComm (QCOM). There was definitely some action following these rulings – Verizon (VZ) signed an unprecedented agreement

Read Full Article »

iPhone’s Component Ecosystem: Synthesis

Over the last few weeks, we have reviewed the iPhone’s Component Vendors. Here is a recap of the articles: iPhone’s Inside Beneficiaries provides an overview of the various players. We covered Samsung, one of the top component providers, who also has the manufacturing and design capabilities to become the iPhone’s major competitor in the future.

Read Full Article »