Qualcomm has announced that its upcoming quad-core processor will have built-in LTE capabilities. This will potentially make manufacturing LTE-enabled handsets much easier than it currently is. According to VentureBeat, the chip—the Snapdragon 400—is slated for launch later this year, so we will undoubtedly start seeing handsets running on these chips before the end of the year.
Integrating the wireless capabilities on one chip helps streamline a handset's internals, thus leaving more room for other things, such as a better GPU or even a bigger battery. It can also potentially reduce prices of manufacturing phones with LTE capabilities, and by extension, make LTE-enabled phones more affordable to the public. Qualcomm has gone on the record to state that the chip is intended for emerging regions.
The Snapdragon 400 will have a built-in LTE modem
The Snapdragon 400 chips were first unveiled back in February. Snapdragon 400 processors are designed to deliver the performance, connectivity and battery life that consumers expect in high volume smartphones and tablets, and include the following features:
An option between dual Krait CPUs running at up to 1.7GHz per core, or Quad ARM A7 CPUs running at up to 1.4GHz
Adreno 305 GPU
Support for modern technology, including TDSCDMA, DC-HASPA+, 1x Advanced, W+G CDMA and multi-SIM capabilities of DSDS (dual-SIM, dual-standby) and DSDA (dual-SIM, dual-active)
LPDDR2 or LPDDR3 RAM which gives a speed boost to memory
1080p video capture and playback capabilities
Support for Miracast
The direct competition to the chip comes from Nvidia's Tegra 4i, which also has an integrated LTE chip. The Tegra 4i essentially integrates the Tegra 4 with Nvidia's i500 LTE modem. This helps cut the size of the chip down to half of that of other chips.
Integrating the wireless capabilities on one chip helps streamline a handset's internals, thus leaving more room for other things, such as a better GPU or even a bigger battery. It can also potentially reduce prices of manufacturing phones with LTE capabilities, and by extension, make LTE-enabled phones more affordable to the public. Qualcomm has gone on the record to state that the chip is intended for emerging regions.
The Snapdragon 400 will have a built-in LTE modem
The Snapdragon 400 chips were first unveiled back in February. Snapdragon 400 processors are designed to deliver the performance, connectivity and battery life that consumers expect in high volume smartphones and tablets, and include the following features:
An option between dual Krait CPUs running at up to 1.7GHz per core, or Quad ARM A7 CPUs running at up to 1.4GHz
Adreno 305 GPU
Support for modern technology, including TDSCDMA, DC-HASPA+, 1x Advanced, W+G CDMA and multi-SIM capabilities of DSDS (dual-SIM, dual-standby) and DSDA (dual-SIM, dual-active)
LPDDR2 or LPDDR3 RAM which gives a speed boost to memory
1080p video capture and playback capabilities
Support for Miracast
The direct competition to the chip comes from Nvidia's Tegra 4i, which also has an integrated LTE chip. The Tegra 4i essentially integrates the Tegra 4 with Nvidia's i500 LTE modem. This helps cut the size of the chip down to half of that of other chips.
