Broadcom has been added to Nokia’s list of 5G chip suppliers, joining Intel and Marvell, both of which made similar deals with the equipment vendor in March. All three chip suppliers will help Nokia expand its ReefShark-branded silicon, used in its AirScale radio products and will reduce size and power consumption, while providing a capacity and performance boost.
Due to the cost and supply chain challenges, Nokia had to rethink its decision to use Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) — rather than application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) — for its 5G equipment, which are more flexible, but more expensive.
