Nvidia's Icera LTE modem gets approved by AT&T

Most chip makers have long realized that, in the future, they are going to need to integrate LTE and 3G modems with their SoCs if they want to be competitive. This brings down the price of components, which is a benefit to potential customers and it also reduces time-to-market.

The latter has been a problem for Nvidia with Tegra 3, because just as they were starting to get a window of opportunity in the mobile market, here comes Qualcomm with their S4 SoC, which has integrated LTE, and takes away market share from them, in several major markets where LTE is mandatory for new mobile devices.

But Nvidia was one of the first to realize this trend of integrating LTE baseband silicon into SoCs, so last year they completed the acquisition of Icera, a company that makes LTE and 3G modems. Unfortunately, we won’t see Nvidia chips integrated with Icera LTE until a chip called Grey will arrive next year. What we will see is Tegra 3+ arriving alongside the Icera modem later this year. In fact, the Icera 410 LTE modem has already been approved by AT&T:

“Validation with AT&T is an achievement that paves the way for NVIDIA Icera-powered LTE devices on the AT&T network through this year and next,” said Stan Boland, senior vice president of Mobile Communications at NVIDIA.

Tegra 3+ will also support modems from: GCT Semiconductor, Renesas Mobile, and ST-Ericsson. Will it be too late for Tegra 3 and Tegra 3+ to capture significant market share? Unless they have a huge amount of success winning designs for that Kai platform by helping launch many $200 tablets, we’re probably going to hear about fewer and fewer devices with Tegra 3. And, until Tegra 4 arrives, future S4 and Cortex A15 chips will steal the show.

NVIDIA Icera Modem Chipset Validated on AT&T LTE Network

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—May 24, 2012—NVIDIA today announced that the NVIDIA® Icera® 410 LTE multimode data modem chipset for tablets and clamshell devices has been tested and validated for operation on the AT&T 4G LTE network.

AT&T qualification tests help ensure that product manufacturers can confidently select chipsets that integrate with connected devices and can quickly achieve final product qualification.

“Validation with AT&T is an achievement that paves the way for NVIDIA Icera-powered LTE devices on the AT&T network through this year and next,” said Stan Boland, senior vice president of Mobile Communications at NVIDIA.

The NVIDIA Icera 410 LTE modem delivers lightning-fast web browsing, video streaming and multiplayer gaming to tablets and clamshell devices. It is the first Icera modem to implement 4G LTE in NVIDIA’s software defined radio baseband processor. Together with its multimode radio transceiver, the chipset offers 4G LTE at category 2 data rates (up to 50 Mbps) as well as 4G HSPA+, 3G and 2G compatibility.

Tags / Keywords:
NVIDIA, Tegra®, Icera, LTE, 4G, super phone, tablet, mobile computing, quad core, dual core, smartphone, modem, Android

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