Parent company likely to benefit either way

A Silicon Valley firm called LitePoint may be tasked with testing LTE for the iPhone 5, suggests Citigroup analyst Wenge Yang. "Our checks also indicate the LitePoint, traditionally a 'connectivity' testing company with products used for Wi-Fi, blue-tooth [sic], and other wireless testing, is getting major inroads into LTE testing for the next generation smartphone," he writes. "More specifically, there are indications that LitePoint LTE products could be used for Apple’s iPhone 5, which [is] expected to be released next summer.

"This could represent a big growth driver for LitePoint. It should also help materialize the 20% growth rate mgmt expected before the acquisition," adds Yang.

In October LitePoint was bought out by a company called Terdayne, which manufactures semiconductor test equipment. Teradyne handles all of the system-on-a-chip test equipment at Samsung, which in turn makes processors for itself and companies like Apple. Yang describes Teradyne as "the best positioned company for smartphone/tablet growth in semi cap equipment space," suggesting that Samsung may spend two to three times as much on test equipment in 2012 as it did in 2011. That might contribute between $50 million and $150 million more to forecasts of Teradyne revenue.

By Electronista Staff