EONEWS: What are your opinions regarding the major trends for this market (slowing, growing, booming…)?
ELJALLAD: The wireless phone market is growing rapidly. Within the rapidly growing wirelessmarket, smart phones are growing at a high rate while feature phones are forecasted to decline quarter on quarter. Q2 2013 saw the first higher shipments of smartphones than feature phones and this will be a continuing trend moving forward. With the popularity of smart phones, a segmentation of high-tier, mid-tier, and low-tier is becoming more visible. We see the high-tier category of smart phones reaching a saturation point in the market while the mid- and low- tiers are gaining more market share and will be the dominating tiers by the end of 2014.
EONEWS: What are the key strategies adopted by your company in the short/medium period to address (or to better address) the needs of the market?
ELJALLAD: ON Semiconductor’s strategy is to provide a differentiated solution to the smart phone market. This includes the expansion of IP and capabilities within our current competencies as well as investing in new technologies that provide an additional value to our customers. We are also focused on aligning our efforts and design activities with the top OEMs in this market as well as partnering and providing solutions for the major chip-set providers for smart phones.
EONEWS: What are you doing in order to implement your strategies (partnership/agreements, new acquisitions, investments in activities like R&D, people….)?
ELJALLAD: In order for ON Semiconductor to accomplish these strategies, we have invested in dedicated support and design teams for the wireless market as well as setting up Solution Engineering Centers (SECs) located in key locations worldwide to offer additional design capabilities to our customers. As stated before, we are also investing in new IP that offers our customers additional value and flexibility in their designs.
EONEWS: What are the most important application?
ELJALLAD: For ON Semiconductor the key areas are mainly in antenna RF tuning ICs, Optical Image Stabilizer (OIS) and Auto-Focus (AF) for camera modules, ESD protection and EMI filtering. We also offer a broad offering of analog and power management solutions.
EONEWS: Which are the key factors that set your company apart from the competition?
ELJALLAD: ON Semiconductor is unique in that we have broad range of offerings for multiple markets. We have devices that are smaller than a speck of pepper, all the way to high end ASICs with hundreds of pins; from a simple diode or transistor to a high end DSP. This broad product offering allows us to reuse our capabilities and expertise across various markets to develop very competitive solutions. ON Semiconductor also boasts a best-in-class supply chain and customer support team with high volume support capabilities that meet the demanding mobile phone market. The company shipped more than 40 billion units in 2012 and is on track to exceed this in 2013.
EONEWS: And in the middle/long term (if you have a crystal ball!)?
ELJALLAD: My crystal ball tells me that the focus will continue to be on high-tier smart phones with their higher priced bill of materials as well as mid-tier smart phones with their higher volumes and mid priced bill of materials. I also see the chip-set arena becoming more competitive with the entry of Intel into the smart phone market and MediaTek’s introduction of higher end chip-sets for smart phones and tablets. In addition, I think we’ll see LTE coverage continue to expand worldwide and in parallel OEMs will introduce more phones with LTE-advance capabilities. Finally, in the future, your phone will be charged while it is still in your pocket – no need to worry about cables or wall plugs.