Your Success Stories
At Qualcomm, we are believers in the power of partnership. It is the spirit of collaboration that fuels the rapid evolution of the wireless industry. And it is our commitment to collaboration that has enabled us to share success with many types of innovators as we take wireless to places it has never been — together. At Qualcomm, when our partners succeed, we succeed.Discera
Reinventing the Heartbeat
Smaller Is Better
Tom Willey scans the horizon of the multibillion dollar timing control market and likes what he sees. While quartz crystal currently supplies the heartbeat for nearly all electronic devices, Willey envisions his company's resonator technology replacing those crystals.
CEO of Discera, a semiconductor company offering micron-size, silicon-based resonators, Willey has reason to be confident.
In the ongoing trend toward miniaturization of devices, quartz crystal components can't get much smaller. Discera offers a MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) solution that can.
Fundamental Building Block
Discera's PureSilicon Resonator™ technology is a fundamental building block for creating next-generation electronic devices.
“Discera's MEMS oscillators deliver significantly higher performance in a much smaller size and for much lower cost than quartz crystal,” explains Willey. “Depending on the application, you get higher performance for the same price point or the same performance for less cost.”
The technology can be used inside everything from cell phones, cameras, and MP3 players to specialized military equipment.
Long-Range Promise
Drawn to Discera's industry-leading products, Qualcomm invested in the company in 2004.
Here's why. Today if you open a Qualcomm-powered cell phone, you'll see a quartz crystal alongside the Qualcomm chipset. Discera plans on bonding a MEMS oscillator to the chipset during packaging. The result? A single, embedded solution that costs less to produce and requires less space inside the phone.
Driving to Market
Qualcomm is helping Discera drive its products to market.
“Qualcomm's strategic investment in Discera has brought us multiple layers of value,” notes Willey. “We look to Qualcomm as a strategic partner to help us gain insight and perspective of the rapidly changing consumer and wireless marketplace. Qualcomm has played an instrumental role in helping us develop our product roadmap and overall corporate strategy.
“The timing control market is huge,” adds Willey. “Approximately 10 billion quartz crystals are sold every year. We're trying to dominate the quartz market by replacing it with a MEMS-based solution.”
WaveMarket
Driving Location-Based Services Market Growth
Never Ask “Where?” Again
What do you do when you’re out and about—not too familiar with the area you’re in—and want to meet friends for a cup of coffee?
If you have a location-based search application by WaveMarket, Inc. on your cell phone, you can simply type in “co” and get a list of nearby coffee shops. You can then plot the shop you want on a map, send a location-aware message to friends, and get turn-by-turn navigation assistance.
Industry-Leading Solutions
A world leader in mobile LBS (location-based services) solutions, WaveMarket is well-positioned to tap the huge potential of the LBS market and help drive its growth.
Qualcomm identified the many possible benefits of WaveMarket’s solutions and invested in the company in 2005.
WaveMarket’s LBS platform harnesses the power of Qualcomm’s gpsONE® technology for consumer applications.
Most importantly, the company’s LBS solutions help maximize the value-added capabilities of the position-location infrastructure on 3G CDMA networks.
Keeping Kids Safe
Together with the AmberWatch Foundation, WaveMarket and Qualcomm are collaborating on AmberWatch Mobile, an application for keeping kids safe from abduction.
AmberWatch Mobile provides GPS tracking capabilities to AmberWatch Mobile-enabled cell phones and wireless handheld devices. It incorporates WaveMarket’s location-based alerting system so that children needing help can use their cell phones to raise alarm and broadcast their location.
Achieving Success
“We’re very excited about the future,” says Joel Grossman, WaveMarket’s vice president of marketing and product management. “There’s a great cooperation between the hardware and software investments Qualcomm is making in cell phones and the solutions that application partners like WaveMarket provides.”
“Qualcomm is the most prolific wireless investor I have ever worked with,” adds WaveMarket Founder and CEO,Tasso Roumeliotis. “In the world of mobility, Qualcomm is the only company or venture capitalist I’ve seen that truly has its finger on the pulse of what everyone needs. Qualcomm has worked very hard to help WaveMarket be successful and achieve greater presence in the CDMA world.”
