Qualcomm is to review new investment opportunities in South Korea, according to a Reuters report. The world’s largest manufacturer of mobile chipsets is to evaluate opportunities at small and medium-sized Korean technology firms for possible investment and alliance deals. Under a government investment promotion programme, the US firm will choose a local partner by October this year, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in a statement, noted the Reuters report.

Meanwhile, the vendor is at the centre of a report from GigaOM that suggests Qualcomm may struggle to supply Verizon with silicon in time for the US operator’s bullish LTE deployment targets. Verizon plans to become one of the world’s first operators to launch commercial LTE services, aiming for 20 to 30 markets activated in 2010. These first deployments would offer LTE access via datacards, with handsets available the following year. However, GigaOM cites a Deutsche Bank report as noting that Qualcomm’s LTE roadmap casts doubt on the vendor’s ability to supply LTE silicon for handsets in this timeframe. In other Qualcomm news, CEO Paul Jacobs told Bloomberg that the market for netbook computers  – scaled-down laptops designed for surfing the Web and other basic functions – could grow bigger than ‘traditional’ notebooks. Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon processor is expected to debut in netbooks this year.