Qualcomm lists challenges in IC production

Mark LaPedus, EETimes
12/7/2010 6:51 PM EST

SAN FRANCISCO – During a keynote at the International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) here, Jim Clifford, senior vice president and general manager of operations for Qualcomm Inc., reached for the panic button.

Clifford did not hit the panic button-yet. However, from a fabless perspective, he is worried about IC scaling, lithography and other issues in chip production.  Fabless chip maker Qualcomm uses several foundries, such as Freescale, GlobalFoundries, SMIC, TSMC and UMC.

Qualcomm recently rolled out a new version of its Snapdragon chipset, based on a 28-nm process. The first foundry for the part is TSMC. Meanwhile, at IEDM, he outlined several challenges facing chip makers like Qualcomm in IC manufacturing. Here’s some of those challenges:

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