5G a Smartphone ‘Complexity Driver,' Says Test Supplier Teradyne CEO

The “mid to high tier” in smartphones “is the place to be” in the test solutions business, said Teradyne CEO Mark Jagiela on a Q3 investor call Wednesday. “These phones are seeing disproportionate growth and complexity related to multiple high-density camera arrays and the associated processing power and storage to manage this data.” The company supplies test and automation equipment to semiconductor makers and smartphone OEMs, with Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung among top customers. The migration to 5G is a big “complexity driver” in smartphones, said Jagiela. “These high tier phones are early adopters of the extra silicon needed to enable these features.” Fewer than 250 million phones will be 5G-enabled in 2020, “and only a fraction of those” will support millimeter-wave, he said. “So despite the bump in 2020, we are still in the very early stages of 5G adoption.”