If you had to guess one product category conspicuously absent from Broadcom's CES booth this year, would you name smartphones? The Irvine, Calif.-based chip giant, who couldn't hack its way into the global baseband modem market, decided to bag it all together last year. The smartphone modem market, locked up by Qualcomm for years, is now under fresh attack by a number of "must-win-at-all-cost" chip companies in Asia, according to Scott McGregor, CEO of Broadcom.