Qualcomm’s rumoured deal to acquire Israeli semiconductor specialist Wilocity could help it to improve Wi-Fi capabilities across the smartphone market, theregister.co.uk reports.
Earlier this week, speculation started to build suggesting that the San Diego firm is preparing a $300 million bid for the high-speed chip designer, which only began shipping its first chipsets to customers around 18 months ago.
The move is particularly significant given the promise of Wilocity’s new Sparrow Wil6300 offering. At the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona, a company spokesperson said the new chipset, which is also known WiGig, uses 802.11ad network technology and can handle data transfer speeds of up to 7Gbps.
While this kind of speed has the potential to alter the smartphone market significantly, the benefits do come at a cost; the chip’s range is severely limited and it isn’t strong enough to pass through walls. It is thought, however, that Qualcomm would look to use Wilcoity’s work as a base point from which to develop the technology further.
The rumours come after Qualcomm posted its growth figures for the first quarter of 2014. According to theinquirer.net, revenues rose to $6.37 billion for the three-month period, marking an increase of four per cent from the same quarter last year. This, however, is smallest improvement recorded by the company in four years.
