TIMELINE QUALCOMM - HOW THEY BECAME PIONEERS OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS One of the world’s foremost wireless innovators, Qualcomm has an extraordinary history of firsts. Behind many breakthrough technologies that transform how the world connects, computes, and communicates, they are integrated into smartphones, smart cities and smart factories, semiconductors, processors and more as well as actively involved in the everyday technology used by billions of people.
1995 1985 QUALity COMMunications Seven employees of Linkabit - a firm established in 1968 that today boasts more than 75 indirect or direct spin-off companies gather in the home of Irwin Jacobs, co-founder and former chairman of Qualcomm. Together, these engineers would pioneer the use of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, which would change the world of wireless. 18
April 2022
CDMA hits the market Based on theories of multiple frequencies that could be used to send a single radio transmission, the inspiration behind CDMA came from Hollywood stars of the 40s, Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil. ‘Frequency hopping’ was patented and proposed to the US government in WW2 to prevent signal jamming, but it was ignored and forgotten, until Qualcomm revived the concept. CDMA would become the basis for cellular networks, eventually overtaking the well established time division multiple access (TDMA).
