Connectivity and wireless chips

The chips that talk, inside the data centre and between the phone and the world

A phone can be on Wi-Fi, connected to Bluetooth earbuds and linked to the mobile network, all at once. Each of those connections needs a chip at each end. So does every link inside a data centre, down to the wires that join one chip to the next inside a server. Chips that connect things are called connectivity chips.

Two worlds of connection

Wireless, for phones and devices

Wi-Fi is fast, but covers a short range and uses more power. Bluetooth uses little power, over a short range. Some low-power radios reach several kilometres, but carry only small amounts of data, such as a meter reading. Every phone also has a radio front end: the part between the antenna and the modem that filters and strengthens the signal.

Wired, for data centres

Switch chips move data between the servers of a data centre. Other chips join one processor to another. Optical chips turn electrical signals into light, to send them along fibre.

Two worlds of connection: wireless chips for phones and devices (Wi-Fi from InnoPhase IoT, Bluetooth from Silicon Labs, long-range low-power radio from Semtech, radio front ends from Skyworks Solutions), and wired chips for data centres (switch chips from Broadcom, chip-to-chip links from Kandou Ai, optical chips from Marvell Technology, and custom AI chips from Broadcom and Marvell Technology).

All these chips must follow shared standards, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet, so that devices from different makers can work together.

Why AI made these chips more important. A large AI model is trained on thousands of processors at once. They must pass data to each other all the time. If the links are slow, the processors sit idle, waiting. So in an AI data centre, the chips that move data matter as much as the processors themselves.

Thousands of processors train one AI model together, passing data through switch chips all the time; if the links are slow, the processors sit idle. Copper links are reaching their limit, so the next links carry light on fibre right to the edge of the chip.

Custom chips. The largest cloud companies now design their own AI chips, built for their own work. The industry calls a chip made for one customer a custom chip. Connectivity chip makers design and deliver these chips for them, because they already have the skills to link processors together.

Who buys. The buyers are phone makers, device makers, makers of network equipment, and the large cloud companies. (More on the chips inside network equipment in Market Segment 1.6, Networking and telecom chips, in Industry Vertical 1, Networking and telecom.)

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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Chips for data centres and for wireless devices

Chips for data centres and for wireless devices

Data-centre networks and custom chips

Broadcom

with engineers in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pune, makes the switch chips in most data-centre networks. It also makes the custom AI chips of Google and other cloud companies, and Wi-Fi and broadband chips. Broadcom has the most job postings in this Market Segment. It bought VMware, and now also sells VMware's virtualisation software, which lets one server run as many separate computers. (More on it in Market Segment 5.2, Enterprise Linux and private cloud platforms, in Industry Vertical 5, Cloud providers and OS makers.)

Marvell Technology

with engineers in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, designs custom chips for cloud companies. It also makes the optical and storage chips used in data centres.

Wireless chips for phones and devices

Silicon Labs

with engineers in Hyderabad, makes the wireless chips inside connected devices, such as smart-home sensors and meters.

Skyworks Solutions

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes the radio front ends in phones.

Semtech

with engineers in Hyderabad and Pune, makes LoRa, a long-range, low-power radio used in meters and sensors.

InnoPhase IoT

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes low-power Wi-Fi chips.

Two more companies work in this area: Lumilens, in Bengaluru, and Kandou Ai, in Pune.

The wire made of light.

Inside an AI data centre, the copper links between processors are reaching their limit. So the connectivity chip makers are moving to optics: light, carried on fibre, right to the edge of the chip. Broadcom and Marvell are building these links. Designing them is among the most demanding work in India's chip centres.

That is the connectivity chip business: wireless chips for phones and devices, and the switch, optical and custom chips that link an AI data centre together. Its makers design much of this in India.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What semiconductor and chip design companies hire for.

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