When Qualcomm reported their fiscal second quarter 2012 financial results last month, they not only announced a record breaking quarter, but they also told investors that they would increase “operating expenses to facilitate additional 28 nanometer supply”. That’s a fancy way of saying “shortage” without actually freaking people out. According to a recent tweet from ASUS Indonesia, the shortage is indeed real. It’s so bad that they’re going to have to delay the PadFone yet again. Note that it was first shown off at Computex 2011 almost a year ago.
Forget about ASUS for a second, what does this shortage mean for the other companies who use Qualcomm’s chips? In February we published a report that said 4 out of every 10 smartphones and tablets that weren’t made by Apple had Qualcomm inside. If there’s a shortage of the S4, who gets first dibs? We know Qualcomm has a small stake in HTC, which is good since the international One S and the American One X rely on the S4. But what about Nokia, who will need the S4 for their Windows Phone 8 phones, or Samsung, who will need the S4 for the American variants of their international devices, or what about the numerous companies who will likely be taking a stab at making a Windows 8 tablet later this year?
If you’re Texas Instruments or ST-Ericsson, you’re probably smiling right now, but we think something a bit more disturbing might happen this year. We may actually see companies reuse the Qualcomm S3 instead of going for a more advanced solution. That would make 2012 a lost year in terms of progress. Now that we think about it, that may not be such a bad thing, since quad core is over rated and we’re frankly waiting to see what ARM’s flagship processor, the Cortex A15, can do.
[Via: Unwired View]