ZTE, Huawei sign billion-dollar deals with US chip firms Qualcomm, Broadcom and Avago.

WorldWide Tech Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Chinese smartphone-maker ZTE has signed contracts worth US$5 billion with US chipset vendors Qualcomm and Broadcom, according to regulatory filings. The agreement with Qualcomm is worth US$4 billion and will cover chip supplies for the period 2012-15. The Broadcom deal is valued at US$1 billion and will cover 2012-14.

Meanwhile, ZTE’s Chinese rival Huawei handed contracts worth US$6 billion to a trio of US chip firms - Qualcomm, Broadcom and Avago – over the weekend. It said the deals “underscore Huawei’s continued commitment to the US market and… will directly and indirectly create over tens of thousands of job opportunities for US.”

According to recent figures from IDC, ZTE shipped 17.1 million mobile devices in Q4 2011 (a 4 percent global market share) making it the world's fifth-largest vendor, just behind Korean rival LG, which shipped 17.7 million (a 4.1 percent share). The Chinese firm also sold 12 million smartphones in 2011 thanks to strong sales of low-cost models for local operators such as China Unicom. 

2013 : 802.11ac to become mainstream WLAN standard, says Broadcom.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

802.11ac will become the mainstream WLAN technology standard as early as the second quarter of 2013 or as late as the first quarter of 2014, according to senior vice president Michael Hurlston for Home and Wireless Networking business unit of Broadcom.

While it took nearly three years for 802.11n to become the mainstream WLAN standard, 802.11ac is expected to take the mainstream status in only one and half years after related applications enter the market because of the already mature environment for applications and the standard's technological advantage, Hurlston indicated.

Broadcom has offered its 5G Wi-Fi series chips based on 802.11ac for adoption by vendors of different types of terminal devices, Hurlston said. Based on these vendors' road maps of products, 802.11ac-enabled wireless routers will be launched in mid-2012, wireless gateways in the third quarter, TVs, STBs and Blu-ray Disc player and other multimedia devices in the fourth quarter of 2012, while tablet PCs and smartphones equipped with built-in 802.11ac modules will come to the market in the fourth quarter of 2012 or the first quarter of 2013, Hurlston indicated. 

The time for 802.11ac to become the mainstream WLAN standard hinges on popular use in smartphones, Hurlston pointed out.

Broadcom has partnered with 14 enterprises for its 5G Wi-Fi chip solutions, including Microsoft, LG Electronics, Motorola, Best Buy, Comcast, Buffalo, Belkin, Netgear, China-based Lenovo and Taiwan-based Asustek Computer and D-Link, Hurlston said