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Contributors: Joseph Byrne, Michael Stanford In This Issue Our new report A Guide to Mobile Connectivity Chips is now available. Learn about the newest Bluetooth, FM, GPS, and Wi-Fi chips, including MWC announcements. For more information, check our web site. For more information, check our web site. Qualcomm Extends Baseband Lineup At the recent MWC, Qualcomm announced several new baseband processors. The new flagship product is the MSM8960, which supports EV-DO Rev. B, multicarrier HSPA+, and LTE. The company has disclosed 4G products in the past, but the MSM8960 appears the most likely to enter production. For example, the MDM8900, announced in March 2007, supported Qualcomm's UMB protocol, which is now defunct. A year later, the company announced an MDM9000 chip set for LTE. The new processor combines the 4G modem of the MDM9000 with peripherals to facilitate its use in handsets. Qualcomm plans to sample the MSM8960 in mid-2010. The new MSM8260 doubles the main specifications of the MSM7230, pushing the data rate to 28Mbps, the video resolution to 1080p, the 3D performance to 88 million polygons per second. The application CPU is Qualcomm's ARM-compatible Scorpion rated at 1.5GHz in 45nm. Qualcomm plans to sample the MSM8260 in 4Q09. About six months later, the company intends to sample the MSM8270, which adds support for multicarrier HSPA+, raising the downstream data rate to 42Mbps. For lower-cost smartphones, the MSM7227 is now sampling. A follow-on to the MSM7225, the MSM7227 adds a Level-2 cache and floating-point support to its application CPU, raises the supported video resolution to WVGA. To reduce processor cost, the MSM7227 does not stack memory and continues to use an ARM11 CPU instead of Qualcomm's higher-performing Scorpion. A key strength of Qualcomm is its productivity. The company was early to the 3G market and pumps out a steady stream of new handset processors. No other handset-processor supplier matches the breadth of the Qualcomm line or the company's roadmap. The company remains a technology leader, being among the first to offer HSPA+ and multimode LTE chip sets. Although many companies are developing LTE basebands, Qualcomm is the first with a chip backward compatible with 2G and 3G networks. Because LTE will initially be deployed in pockets, the ability to fall back to an older network is essential. Qualcomm will have the advantage in supporting multimode handovers because of its products' integration and its experience in 3G. We expect the company to be as successful in LTE as it has been in 3G. The bulk of the market will be 3G for the next several years, however. The MSM8260 is a strong product, combining multimedia features comparable to the latest baseband and application processors from competitors with greater modem performance. The MSM8270 raises modem performance further. For lower-cost designs, the MSM7227 offers ample performance and features. OEMs designing a 3G smartphone—be it a low-cost, high-performance, or intermediate design—will find an appropriate chip set from Qualcomm. —Joe Additional coverage of Qualcomm baseband products appears in our report, A Guide to Wireless Handset Processors.
Usually quiet MediaTek announced two new baseband processors at MWC. The MT6516 is an EDGE chip integrating a separate CPU for application processing. Like other MediaTek baseband processors, multimedia capabilities are a key feature. The MT6516 provides hardware-assisted video processing, including MPEG-2 decode and support for WVGA screens. Up to 5Mpixel cameras are supported. Few other details are available. To compete better with Infineon, which offers ultra-low-cost (ULC) baseband processors integrating RF transceivers and power management, MediaTek introduced the MT6253. The GSM/GPRS MT6253 combines these features as well as a Class-D audio amplifier, camera support, and USB. The fourth largest supplier of baseband processors, MediaTek has been instrumental in supplying Chinese handset manufacturers. The company is differentiated by offering low-cost turnkey handset designs with strong multimedia performance. The MT6516 extends this strategy to the burgeoning low-cost smartphone market. Far more economical than pairing a separate application processor with a baseband processor and assuredly delivered as a turnkey platform, the MT6516 is sure to be a hit with OEMs developing Windows Mobile or Android smartphones. MediaTek positions the MT6253 as providing better performance than competing ULC processors. In this market, however, MediaTek is playing catch-up. Competitors Texas Instruments, ST-Ericsson, and Infineon have long offered RF-integrated baseband processors. Infineon's X-Gold 116, for example, offers capabilities comparable to the MT6253, plus an integrated FM receiver. Thus, the MT6253 is a good choice for MediaTek's existing customers but is unlikely to displace other ULC processors. —Joe. Additional coverage of MediaTek's baseband processors appears in our report, A Guide to Wireless Handset Processors. Announced at MWC, Xposys combines Infineon's RF and integration expertise with Epson's GPS technology. Infineon had been working with Global Locate for GPS technology, but Broadcom's acquisition of that company forced Infineon to seek another partner. The single-chip GPS receiver has impressive sensitivity and low power consumption. Its small solution size makes Xposys well suited to handsets and other space-constrained designs. Infineon, however, has not disclosed whether the new software-based solution can match the accuracy of its current hardware-based design. CSR, the only other company using software-based GPS, has struggled with the accuracy of its design. —Linley Additional coverage of Xposys and other GPS chips appears in our new report, A Guide to Mobile Connectivity Chips. Also at MWC, Imagination Technologies announced its VGX150 graphics IP. Unlike most GPUs, the VGX150 accelerates 2D vector graphics but not 3D graphics. Chip and system designers can use a vector GPU to offload a host CPU from user-interface functions (e.g., effects such as Cover Flow), navigation and mapping, and browser graphics. The new GPU fills the void created when AMD/ATI terminated its GPU IP business, which included the only vector GPU IP previously available; ATI's vector GPU had been licensed by Freescale, Nokia, and others. Imagination did not specify availability for the VGX150. —Joe Additional coverage of Imagination GPU IP appears in our new report, A Guide to CPU Cores and Processor IP.
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