LTE, quad-core apps processor wars begin

Junko Yoshida, EETimes
2/21/2013 2:31 AM EST

NEW YORK--As the Mobile World Congress raises its curtain next week in Barcelona, practically every mobile chip company is rushing to announce new smartphone ICs with the mobile industry’s two new “must-have" features--quad-core and LTE modem.

Of course, not all quad-cores are equal. LTE modems, too, come in different flavors. Every modem chip is at a different stage in operators’ certification processes, a hurdle that every chip vendor needs to clear before claiming a design win.

Aside from Qualcomm, which detailed its Snapdragon 600 and 800 during the International Consumer Electronics Show, and Broadcom, which discussed last week what the company claims to be smallest 4G-LTE Advanced modem chip, both Nvidia and Marvell are competing for the market’s attention this week.

Nvidia unveiled Tuesday (Feb. 19) Tegra 4i, a new member of the Tegra 4 family. It’s an application processor integrated with LTE processor on the same die.

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