Wireless

We design and manufacture semiconductors for the wireless market, including connectivity products and applications processors. Connectivity products enable cellphones or other devices to wirelessly connect to Bluetooth® devices, WiFi networks, GPS location services or make financial transactions with Near Field Communications technology. Applications processors run the phone's software and services that consumers have come to expect from their smartphones, such as e-mail, video and images, and computing capability.

Baseband chips are the main communications chip, or radio, that connects cellphones to a wireless carrier's network. Although basebands were central to our Wireless strategy, several years ago we began to believe the market was changing. Increasingly, we expected baseband growth to slow and the products to commoditize. At the same time, we expected the smartphone market to remain a growth opportunity in a slowing handset market. As a result, we shifted our resources and energies to the connectivity products and applications processors that serve the fast-growing smartphone market. Today, these two differentiated product lines combined have an annual revenue run rate of more than $1 billion, and they continue to grow rapidly. Meanwhile, our strategic transition away from basebands continues on schedule, and we expect substantially all of our baseband revenue to cease by the end of 2012.

Wireless chips accounted for 21 percent of our revenue in 2010.

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Wireless