Qualcomm
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Qualcomm Research Center and global headquarters in San Diego, California, U.S.
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| Public | |
| Traded as | |
| Industry |
telecommunications semiconductors processors |
| Founded |
San Diego, California, U.S. (1985) |
| Founder |
Irwin Jacobs Andrew Viterbi Franklin Antonio Adelia Coffman Andrew Cohen Klein Gilhousen Harvey White |
| Headquarters | San Diego, California, U.S. |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Paul E. Jacobs (Executive Chairman) Steven Mollenkopf (CEO) Derek Aberle (President) |
| Products | CDMA/WCDMA chipsets, Snapdragon , BREW, OmniTRACS, MediaFLO, QChat, mirasol displays, uiOne, Gobi, Qizx |
| Revenue |
 US$ 25.3 billion (2015) |
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US$ 5.8 billion (2015) |
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US$ 5.3 billion (2015) |
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| Total assets |
 US$ 50.8 billion (2015) |
| Total equity |
US$ 31.4 billion (2015) |
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Number of employees
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27,000 (2016) |
| Website | www |
Qualcomm is an American multinational semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company that designs and markets wireless telecommunications products and services. It derives most of its revenue from chipmaking and the bulk of its profit from patent licensing businesses. The company headquarters are located in San Diego, California, United States, and has 224 worldwide locations. The parent company is Qualcomm Incorporated (Qualcomm), which includes the Qualcomm Technology Licensing Division (QTL). Qualcomm's wholly owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI), operates substantially all of Qualcomm's R&D activities, as well as its product and services businesses, including its semiconductor business, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.
Qualcomm was founded in 1985 by Cornell and MIT alumnus and UC San Diego professor Irwin M. Jacobs, USC, MIT alumnus Andrew Viterbi, Harvey White, Adelia Coffman, Andrew Cohen, Klein Gilhousen and Franklin Antonio. Jacobs and Viterbi had previously founded Linkabit. Qualcomm's first products and services included the OmniTRACS satellite locating and messaging service, used by long-haul trucking companies, developed from a product called Omninet owned by Parviz Nazarian and Neil Kadisha, and specialized integrated circuits for digital radio communications such as a Viterbi decoder and now it is one of the leading processor makers for smartphone companies.
In 1990, Qualcomm began the design of the first CDMA-based cellular base station, based upon calculations derived from the CDMA-based OmniTRACS satellite system. This work began as a study contract from AirTouch which was facing a shortage of cellular capacity in Los Angeles. Two years later Qualcomm began to manufacture CDMA cell phones, base stations and chips. The initial base stations were not reliable and the technology was licensed wholly to Nortel in return for their work in improving the base station switching. The first CDMA technology was standardized as IS-95. Qualcomm has since helped to establish the CDMA2000, WCDMA and LTE cellular standards.
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Wikipedia