Broadcom CEO: Life After LTE, 5G Cellular Exit
LAS VEGAS — If you had to guess one product category conspicuously absent from Broadcom's CES booth this year, would you name smartphones?
If you did, you were right.
The Irvine, Calif.-based chip giant, who couldn’t hack its way into the global baseband modem market, decided to bag it all together last year. The smartphone modem market, locked up by Qualcomm for years, is now under fresh attack by a number of “must-win-at-all-cost” chip companies in Asia, according to Scott McGregor, CEO of Broadcom.
Noting that his company was losing about $2 million a day in the modem business, McGregor, who looked almost relieved, proudly pointed to the Broadcom booth and bragged, “We have no cell phones.”
The company’s focus is now on the broadband and connectivity businesses. “Our broadband is an extremely strong and valuable business. Our connectivity business is also very strong, and is focused more on the Internet of Things now,” he said. “Frankly, these are better businesses to be in and invest in.”
The company is broadening its technology and businesses. These include connected homes, and more recently, automotive. McGregor called the automotive segment “a great business we are sort of tiptoeing into” and finding it “very interesting.”
EE Times caught up with McGregor last week during CES and asked him how the company's decision to not participate in the baseband business is likely to affect Broadcom in the future. Here’s an excerpt of our conversation.
![]() |
E-mail This Article | ![]() |
![]() |
Printer-Friendly Page |
|
Related News
- Broadcom cuts 2,500 jobs to exit cellular market
- Altera CEO Upbeat After Tough 2013
- Interview: ST-Ericsson CEO Alain Dutheil on the LTE rollout
- VeriSilicon and Innobase collaboratively launched second-generation Yunbao series 5G RedCap/4G LTE dual-mode modem IP
- Lip-Bu Tan quit Intel board after "differences" with CEO, says Reuters
Breaking News
- High-Performance 16-Bit ADC and DAC IP Cores Now Available for Licensing
- Arm Holdings plc Reports Results for the Third Quarter of the Fiscal Year Ended 2025
- Why UCIe is Key to Connectivity for Next-Gen AI Chiplets
- CHERI Protects Memory at the Hardware Level
- Axiomise Launches footprint, Area Analyzer for Silicon Design
Most Popular
- Accellera Board Approves Universal Verification Methodology for Mixed-Signal (UVM-MS) 1.0 Standard for Release
- Axiomise Launches footprint, Area Analyzer for Silicon Design
- Why UCIe is Key to Connectivity for Next-Gen AI Chiplets
- Intel Halts Products, Slows Roadmap in Years-Long Turnaround
- Ceva-Waves Wi-Fi 6 IP Powers WUQI Microelectronics Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Combo Chip