Battle Between Skyworks and ANADIGICS

By Ji-yon Jung, The Electronics Times

Newly Merged Company "Skyworks" Launched"ANADIGICS" With the Latest Manufacturing ProcessesTop Executives Visit Korea - Fierce Competition Expected

Preserve or recapture?

The battle for the domestic market of PA (power amplifier) for mobile telephone handsets, whose size reaches 80 million units annually (in Korea), between multinational wireless semiconductor companies Skyworks and ANADIGICS is reaching its climax as they vie for the domestic PA market.

The battle was spurred when Conexant, which has enjoyed a market share of over 80% in the PA for Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) market, recently merged its wireless communications business with its related company Alpha Industries to launch a gargantuan company Skyworks, in its defense against ANADIGICS which has been coming up with counter solutions to capture the Korean market.

Dwight Decker, Chief Executive Officer of Conexant, along with top executives of the merged company such as David Aldrich, Chief Executive Officer of Skyworks, and Liam Griffin, Vice President of Skyworks, went full force and made a round of visits to such companies as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics to retain their share of the Korean customers. Bami Bastami, Chief Executive Officer of ANADIGICS, and Vice President Kenneth McCauley visited Korea during the same period, playing "counter-business." Competition between the two sides seemed to spread from product competition to character competition.

During this visit, Conexant and Skyworks held an event with Samsung Electronics to commemorate having supplied ten million core chip sets for Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), boasting their strong ties in the GSM field in addition to the CDMA field. Boosted by such ties, they set this year's target revenue in Korea as 220 million dollars, up from 120 million of last year.

ANADIGICS first entered the Korean market in July of last year, and brought up its market share to 20% in the PA for the CDMA market in one year. It plans to shatter the formidable obstacle presented by Conexant and raise its market share to 40% by next year through mutual assistance with such strategic clients as LG Electronics and Sewon Telecom. In addition, with "Powerplexer ™" which is compatible with GSM and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), it plans to put on the brake on RFMD, the leading player in this field.

Chief Executive Officer of Conexant, Dwight Decker, showed confidence stating, "Through the merger with Alpha Industries, we have reinforced technology and lineup, and will be able to defend our position in the Korean market." President of ANADIGICS, Bami Bastami, vowed to triumph by saying, "We possess the latest manufacturing processes, from the latest 150 mm wafer plant with gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium gallium phosphide (InGaP) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT). We are confident we will capture the Korean market in terms of price and quality competitiveness."

PA is a device that amplifies the modulated signal in the transmitting area of mobile telephone handsets and enables it to reach the base station. As Korea produces over 20% of the world's demand for handsets, it has been a hot competing ground for multinational communication semiconductor companies such as Conexant, RFMD, Hitachi, Atmel, and ANADIGICS.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of the competition between Skyworks and ANADIGICS.

This article was originally published by The Electronics Times (Korea), 28 July 2002