Qualcomm announced a collaboration with Alphabet's Google to produce
wearable devices such as smartwatches utilizing
RISC-V CPUs. RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," is an open-source technology that competes with Arm Holdings' expensive proprietary technology.
U.S. companies are still actively working to advance RISC-V based technology despite concerns expressed by lawmakers that China is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry. Qualcomm said it plans to commercialize the RISC-V-based wearables solution globally including the United States, as per economic times.
According to Qualcomm, it will enable more items in the Android ecosystem to take use of custom processors that are low power and high performance.
Qualcomm Incorporated is a Delaware-incorporated American multinational firm located in San Diego, California. It develops semiconductors, software, and
wireless technology services. It possesses patents that are fundamental to the mobile communications protocols 5G, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, and WCDMA.
Irwin Jacobs and six other co-founders founded Qualcomm in 1985. Its early research on
CDMA wireless cell phone technology was supported by the sale of Omnitracs, a two-way mobile digital satellite communications system. The 2G standard was accepted after a heated discussion in the telecom industry, with Qualcomm's CDMA patents added. Following that, there was a series of court battles about the fee for licensing patents required by the standard.