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I believe NXP has an NFC chip in a few different iPhone revs.

But I think NFC chipsets are noise in this acquisition, I think this is all about QCOM missing the boat on automotive and buying their way into this market via NXP.

The real loser here is Intel who really doesn't have a compelling automotive story (aside from maybe Altera) and risks loosing to QCOM in handsets AND automotive.

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I agree that automotive is the play here.

Automotive isn't just about the application processor showing rear-camera video and 3D maps, there are a lot of other pieces needed and Moto/Freescale has had that market share for a very long time (at least with the American automakers).

QCOM is currently making most of its profits from 3G and 4G licensing, and those royalties have been threatened by poor manufacturer cooperation and protectionist regulatory actions in China and South Korea.

Buying NXPI (and its many technologies) gives QCOM an escape path to diversify away from a maturing mobile handset market, with many foreign manufacturers in countries with a different view on IP.

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