• Qualcomm’s joint venture with TDK yields results 
• Fills gaps in Qualcomm’s end-to-end 5G solutions
• Qualcomm so impressed it’s bought the company

Qualcomm says it’s just passed a significant milestone in its 5G strategy by completing the acquisition of the remaining interest in RF360 Holdings Singapore, a  joint venture it established with TDK Corporation in 2017 (see - Qualcomm signs off on its $3 billion joint venture with TDK).

It says the joint venture has produced RF front-end (RFFE) filters which enable Qualcomm Technologies to deliver complete 4G/5G RFFE solutions. With the acquistion it is now able to provide customers a complete end-to-end solution from modem to antenna with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF System, including the world's first commercial 5G NR sub-6 and mmWave solutions, integrating power amplifiers, filters, multiplexers, antenna tuning, LNAs, switching and envelope tracking products.

It means that Qualcomm’s OEM customers can design thin, high-performance, battery-efficient 5G multimode devices at scale and on time, it claims. Due to the complexity of 5G, with its new spectrum and wider bandwidths, the advanced RFFE solutions are very well-positioned to win future smartphone designs, it maintains, 

Qualcomm claims the acquisition is the final step in formally bringing in-house more than 20 years of expertise in RFFE filtering and says it now has one of the broadest portfolios of RFFE products, including integrated and discrete micro-acoustic components utilizing RFFE filter technologies such as BAW, SAW, TC-SAW, as well as Thin Film SAW, all of which are core to developing and producing filters, duplexers, multiplexers for discrete, power amplifiers and diversity modules, as well as n-plexers and extractors for the very complex front end necessary for today's leading mobile phones and connected devices.

"Our goal in the formation of this joint venture was to enhance Qualcomm Technologies' front-end solutions to enable us to deliver a truly complete solution to the mobile device ecosystem, and we have done exactly that," said Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm Incorporated.

TDK Electronics' (formerly EPCOS) remaining interest in the joint venture was valued at $1.15 billion in August 2019. The total purchase price, including the initial investment, payments to TDK based on sales by the joint venture, and development obligations, will be approximately $3.1 billion.