Renesas has been trying to improve its global reach with its SH-Mobile G Series of application processors. The fourth generation SH-Mobile G processor, SH-Mobile G4, will support HSPA and is expected to be available in 2010. Renesas' SH-Mobile G series processors (integrating the FOMA baseband technology of NTT docomo) support OSs such as Symbian and Linux and are ARM-compatible, unlike the company's stand-alone apps processors. While Renesas is a prominent supplier in markets for apps processors, RF transceivers and power amplifiers, it is only a minor player in the cellular baseband processor market. Renesas doesn’t have its own baseband technology and has collaborated with the NTT docomo to design the SH-Mobile G Series chips.

Competition in the global W-CDMA chipset market is already high and tier-1 handset vendors already have established relationships with other leading chip suppliers. If Renesas can attain any high volume tier-1 global vendor for its SH-Mobile G basebands it could definitely help its long-term ambitions. But so far there are no publicly known SH-Mobile G baseband design-wins outside Japan and Korea.

In April 2009 Renesas announced merger plans with Japanese chip vendor NEC Electronics. Unlike Renesas, NEC Electronics has its own baseband technology and it remains to be seen how Renesas will leverage NEC’s baseband expertise. The planned merger with NEC Electronics is not expected to contribute much to Renesas’ global baseband presence given that NEC Electronics is also focused on the Japanese market. To read more about our thoughts on Renesas, see our recent profile on the company here.

Sravan Kundojjala

At the London “official” launch of Samsung’s new mobile operating system, bada (which means ocean in Korean), many questions remain unanswered regarding what bada is all about.

bada’s goal is “smartphones for everyone”, everywhere in the world, starting with 50 countries when the first handset is launched sometime during the first half of 2010, but extending to global coverage eventually.

Samsung’s first handset based on the bada platform will also be the first phone to run Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 user interface. The company has a desire to deliver a rich user experience to everyone. Although Samsung declined to comment on its strategy for other OSs including Symbian, Android, LiMo and Windows Mobile, we believe that bada has come about as a result of Samsung’s frustration with the user interface capabilities (or lack of) of Symbian over the last couple of years, forcing the handset OEM to develop its own solution.

Samsung declined to estimate the number of shipments it expects to achieve with bada during 2010, but said it is currently working with mobile network operators to estimate the likely demand for its first handset.

Full details of the hardware requirements for bada were not discussed during the announcement, but Thomas Richter, Director of Portfolio Management at Samsung, confirmed that the platform will support 3D graphics, multi-touch capacitive touchscreens, Flash, C++, HTML5, multiple sensors and many other hardware and software functions. Application developers will have access to some of the core phone functions such as the proximity sensor, weather sensor and call functions. Richter added that there will be an extensive developer site and developer support centres around the world. In the same way that Google drummed up support for its Android platform, Samsung is launching a developer competition for bada, with total prize money of US$2.7 million and a first prize of $300K for the winner of the best application. Developer days will be held in Seoul, London and San Francisco to begin with during 2010.

Samsung said it expects to ship a total of 40 million touchscreen phones during 2009 and “many more” during 2010. Estimates from other sources suggest that around 50% of Samsung’s portfolio in 2010 will consist of touchscreen phones and that the company may ship over 100 million touchscreen handsets during 2010.

Stuart Robinson

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Strategy Analytics feels Marvell’s lack of exposure to high volume handset makers, lack of a visible long-term baseband product roadmap and missing technology pieces like RF transceivers will force the company to reconsider its position as a cellular baseband processor supplier. Marvell is a prominent player in application processor and connectivity market but a minor player in the cellular baseband market. Since acquiring Intel’s cellular business in 2006, Marvell has made limited progress in the cellular baseband processor market where as competitors Infineon, Qualcomm, and ST-Ericsson built scale during the same period. The company's total cellular revenues (including basebands, application processors, connectivity) are still less than one billion dollar.

Research in Motion (RIM) is Marvell’s biggest cellular baseband customer but Marvell is expected to lose to share to Qualcomm in the long-term. Qualcomm already supplies basebands to over 25 percent of the RIM’s handsets (mostly CDMA). Freescale also recently scored some baseband design-wins at RIM at the expense of Marvell although Freescale recently gave up its baseband efforts. Marvell’s other cellular baseband customers include Palm, Asustek, and some Asian ODMs. Most recently the company scored Ophone TD-SCDMA Android smartphone design-wins at China Mobile and we believe that most of the TD-SCDMA baseband IP belongs to China Mobile and affiliates. Marvell's competitors MediaTek, ST-Ericsson are also investing in TD-SCDMA and most recently Qualcomm also expressed its intention to compete for TD-SCDMA design-wins in China next year. We don't see how a niche market strategy can be successful for this R&D intensive technology.

The company's lack of RF transceiver products is likely to have an impact on its penetration in entry level and mid market handset segments where transceiver-baseband approach is appropriate. The lack of visible LTE roadmap could put Marvell behind its competitors Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson and Infineon. We believe that growing R&D costs to develop advanced communication IP could put pressure on Marvell to reconsider its long-term position as a baseband vendor.

We feel that Marvell could perhaps partner with companies like MediaTek or Infineon who lack high-end application processor technology. Marvell's application processors are already popular in the Chinese smartphone market and could be a good fit for MediaTek. However it is not clear whether these companies are interested in Marvell's XScale technology.

Sravan Kundojjala

Client reading: Baseband Processor Profile: Time for Marvell to Reconsider Its Baseband Position