Lenovo gets into the chip design field

3,426 0
Summary

Lenovo is strategically entering the chip design field, with a primary focus on developing integrated circuits for its smartphone and tablet lines. This initiative involves a significant expansion of their current small team to 100 engineers, with recruitment planned for Beijing and Shenzhen by mid-year. The decision stems from difficulties in securing the latest application processors from competitors, despite Lenovo's substantial market share in the smartphone sector. This long-term strategy aims to gain greater control over their mobile business's destiny and enhance their bargaining power with existing semiconductor manufacturers. To bolster this new direction, Lenovo has appointed industry veterans like Jerry Yang and ARM co-founder Tudor Brown to key advisory roles.

According to EETimes, Lenovo will enter the field of chip design, the main focus is the smartphone and tablet chip design.

There is a small team of 10 people who are working on integrated circuit design in Lenovo in the past 10 years, Till the middle of this year, Lenovo intends to expand the team to 100 engineers. Lenovo may recruit 40 engineers in Shenzhen and 60 engineers in Beijing.

Despite Lenovo has much freedom in the choice of application processors, but because it involves a competitive relationship, It's difficult for Lenovo to get the latest version of the processor. For example, Samsung refused to provide the latest Exynos processor to Lenovo. According to data from Strategy Analytics, Lenovo's share in the smartphone market in China has reached 13.2% last year, following 17.7% of Samsung.



Therefore, in the long term, Lenovo apparently hopes to grasp the fate of their own smart phone business, but in the short term, it can enhance the bargaining advantage when negotiating with other semiconductor manufacturer involved in the field of chip processor.

To achieve this vision, the Lenovo management team has done some adjustments, including announcing the hire of Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang as "observers" of the Board and employing the co-founder of ARM Tudor Brown as non-executive Director.

Source : http://www.36kr.com/p/202279.html

SAMSUNG CHIP SMARTPHONE LENOVO

  RELATED

  COMMENTS

0

No comment for this article.