The Scope of Support of Toolkits in the Smartphone Industry

: Companies that develop products with IC (Integrated Circuit) chipsets use toolkits provided by semiconductor suppliers to implement their own series of trial-and-error experiments ranging from concept creation to problem-solving in product developments. According to von Hippel (2001), toolkits have the following elements: (a) learning by doing via trial-and-error, (b) module libraries, (c) solution space, (d) user-friendly, and (e) translating user designs for production. This study defines (b) and (c) as the scope of support for toolkits and compares this scope for Android smartphone manufacturers (Samsung, Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO), which were provided by semiconductor suppliers (Qualcomm and Mediatek) in the 2010s. As a result, this study found that the scope of support of Mediatek’s toolkit is broader than Qualcomm’s. Compared to Samsung, Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO tended to adopt Mediatek’s toolkit to benefit from the broader scope of support in their Android smartphone developments.


Introduction
In the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, companies use IC chipsets to develop their products while getting technical support from semiconductor suppliers. Semiconductor suppliers (e.g., Qualcomm, Texas Instrument, Mediatek, etc.) usually determine what sort of technical support they should provide by judging the product development capabilities of companies (Yasumoto & Shiu, 2007).
One way to provide technical support to companies is by supplying "toolkits." By using toolkits from semiconductor suppliers, companies can conduct their own series of trial-and-error experiments, ranging from concept creation to problem-solving in product developments. Furthermore, companies can use toolkits to develop their own IC chipsets for their products. 1 Von Hippel (2001)  As defined in von Hippel (2001) (Thomke & von Hippel, 2002). 2 For example, the "toolkit's scope" of Prügl and Schreier (2006) is used as a concept similar to (b) module libraries. The "toolkit's spectrum" of Franke and Piller (2003), the "solution space" of Franke and Piller (2004), and the "design freedom" of Bergvall-Kåreborn, Björn, and Chincholle (2011) and Wang and Li (2013) are treated as being conceptually similar to (c) solution space.
subtracting from a standard database. Solution space is where users are allowed to manipulate and combine relatively basic and general-purpose building blocks and operations. By assimilating module libraries and solution space, users can also understand the design availability and limitation in their product developments. This study defines these two elements as the scope of support of a toolkit.

Sample
Past researches in the semiconductor industry have dealt with a variety of analysis objects. For example, Weber (2002) and Min (2016) investigated the division of labor between semiconductor suppliers and vendors who provide materials and equipment to semiconductor suppliers for the production of semiconductors. 2) The following in-house components are recommended: • USB controller, Power Management, Wifi/BT module.

1) Qualcomm's MTP (Modem Test Platform) is not verified by Google's quality assurance tests (CTS and Monkey test).
2) Designers should implement the layout of PCB by themselves, in particular in the RF part.

Concluding Remarks
von Hippel emphasized that "sticky information" (von Hippel, 1994) exists between users and firms in a series of studies ranging from "lead user (von Hippel, 1986)" to "democratic innovation (von Hippel, 2009)." He asserts that this sticky information can be alleviated with toolkits.
However, this study further emphasizes that toolkits must fit the capabilities of users. 8 For example, the survey of PC games by Jeppesen (2005) noted that users need the ability to fully use the toolkit. Also, Prügl and Schreier (2006)  In 2010, Qualcomm has actually been working on providing IC chipsets to Chinese Android smartphone manufacturers. By collaborating with Chinese mobile phone design house Thundersoft,9 8 In addition, it has been noted that toolkits must satisfy users. For example, Franke and von Hippel (2003) and Franke and Piller (2004) showed that toolkits increased user satisfaction in innovations of open source software (i.e., Apache) and watches (i.e., Swatch). In addition, in research on T-shirts by Franke, Schreier, and Kaiser (2010) and smartphone applications by Bergvall-Kåreborn, Björn, and Chincholle (2011), it was shown that toolkits contribute to feelings of achievement and motivation among users. 9 https://store.thundersoft.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=55 from 2011, Qualcomm started to expand the scope of support of their toolkit to fit the capabilities of Chinese Android smartphone manufacturers. Qualcomm and Thundersoft set up laboratories to validate peripheral components of third party vendors to increase the number of the module libraries. In addition, they created form factor reference designs like Mediatek did, which means their toolkit is not just a big size board for evaluation. Qualcomm attempted to provide more possibilities for designers of Android smartphone manufacturers to perform mix-and-match experiments based on practical considerations. In this sense, the solution space of their toolkit is increasing.