You’ve probably heard of Qualcomm, chip maker for almost every non-GSM device in existence and, recently, builder of well-known mobile processors, but Atheros? These guys have been quiet for years.
Atheros makes almost all wi-fi chips built into mobile devices. In short, anything that doesn’t use a cellular network, they’re on top of, and they’ve spurred the evolution of Wi-Fi over the past few years. Now, however, they’re part of
Qualcomm, putting that company into a new, extremely lucrative position. In short, Qualcomm now owns a vast swathe of the mobile semiconductor space.