iPhone and Windows 7 don't play nice, Intel P55 chipset to blame
[Via The Register]
chipset posts
Qualcomm may be many things, but it ain't stupid. On what basis do we make that bold claim? Historically, it's been very good about supporting and profiting from standards that aren't its own with one hand, even as it's pushing alternatives with the other. They've pulled this trick recently with comprehensive LTE support with CDMA migration -- a double whammy, considering that CDMA is Qualcomm's baby and LTE goes head to head with Qualcomm's UMB. Now, the firm is pairing up its MediaFLO mobile TV tech on a single hunk of silicon with support for ISDB-T, used in Japan and Brazil; essentially, the idea is that free programing would flow over ISDB-T and pay channels would come down on the FLO signal. It's an interesting concept, we suppose, but with mobile TV yet to be a profitable venture in most parts of the globe, it might be still be an idea just a bit ahead of its time.
If you're sick of hearing about end products and want to get down and dirty with the innards of handsets of tomorrow, look no further than Qualcomm. The firm is busting out a smorgasbord of new chips at Mobile World Congress today, so we'll get right to it. Up first is the QST1000, QST1100 and QST1105 chipsets, which include the following:
What if Toshiba were to produce a Blu-ray player? If there's one surefire sign that a company is recognizing the mortality of its own standards, it's throwing some support behind the competition's -- and that's exactly what Qualcomm has done in announcing new roadmaps for its mobile and cellular base station chipsets that include LTE. LTE, one of several 4G standards competing for the hearts and minds of carriers across the world, has a huge leg up on Qualcomm's own UMB and WiMAX (which is technically a pre-4G standard, anyway) by having the blessing of the GSM Association, the global juggernaut of mobile industry organizations. Anyway, Qualcomm's new plans call for future chipsets to support various flavors of UMTS, HSPA, and EV-DO, theoretically making it easier for carriers of all creeds to migrate to LTE while still supporting legacy cells and devices. The new silicon is expected to be available next year, and without a single major carrier having signed up for UMB, we'd say that's not a moment too soon.
Hot on the heels of its dual-3G Gobi chip comes a new trio of units from Qualcomm that cram a modem, multi-band RF transceiver, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, FM radio and GPS capabilities into a 12- x 12-millimeter package. The units support UMTS, HSPA and EV-DO (depending on which you select), and there's also an ARM11 CPU that hums along at up to 600MHz for processing applications. Furthermore, each chip can handle a 5-megapixel camera, VGA display and TV output, and in case you hadn't guessed, they're all fabricated using 45-nanometer technology. No word on where exactly we'll see these used, but samples are scheduled to ship out in Q4 of next year.
In technology, speed is almost universally the enemy of power, and that rule certainly holds true in the world of cellular data standards. You heard it from His Steveness himself -- one of the main reasons we don't have a 3G iPhone on store shelves is because he isn't happy with battery life on HSDPA chipsets yet (consumers' opinions be damned, apparently), and in general, runtimes on 3G handsets large and small flag their 2G cousins, sometimes by a significant margin. Happily, the wiz kids at NTT DoCoMo are on the case, crafting Super 3G / LTE chipsets on 65nm dies capable of burning through 200Mbps at "sufficiently low power consumption" for mobile use. There's still no word on when NTT DoCoMo (or anyone else, for that matter) will be launching a commercial network at LTE speeds, but the company's hailing this latest batch of chips as a "milestone" on that journey -- and let's be honest, odds are good that Japan's gonna be rocking this stuff years before the rest of us anyhow.
Apart from Verizon, it seems that carriers and manufacturers alike have kept a pretty steady stance on Qualcomm's far-from-over spat with Broadcom -- and in light of the most recent ruling allowing Qualcomm customers to ship products containing its chips, that stance may be paying off. HTC is the latest major manufacturer to reaffirm its relationship with the chip maker and patent holder extraordinaire, saying that it intends to release ten new models sporting Qualcomm innards by year's end. Big man Peter Chou himself chimed in on the issue, proclaiming "we are pleased to have a close strategic relationship with Qualcomm and look forward to bringing continued industry-changing devices to market." 'Course, you won't be bringing those industry-changing devices to the US if the court system ultimately rules against your bedfellow, Peter. Just thought you should know.
Qualcomm -- a company that's arguably more used to suing than being sued -- isn't finding much luck in its protracted quest to avoid a Broadcom-led ban of its 3G hardware from coming into the States. Following a recent denial of its motion to stay the ban in the court system, the President of The United States himself (or his administration, anyway) has swooped in to render an executive judgment, and it ain't looking any better for Qualcomm. Saying that the importance of protecting IP rights outweighs the inconvenience of the ban, the Bush folks have stood by the ITC's decision to impose the ban in the first place, making it seem all that much smarter now for Verizon to have sidestepped the whole ordeal and paid Broadcom itself. Barring any last minute antics, the ban gets enforced starting tomorrow.
Wireless handsets are becoming better gaming machines, although we're not seeing PSP-level playability yet on that slim-n-fast handset just yet. Toshiba, though, may want to change that -- and it's announced that a new 3D LSI chip that can render 100 mega-polygons per second to take mobile gaming and realism to the next level. As such, Toshy's new "TC35711XBG" chip is slated to be available to OEMs and ODMs in October. With 38 times the performance of existing solutions, built-in shading and reflectivity and WVGA support, we're chomping at the bit to see what this brings to the handset gaming table soon.
Sprint and Qualcomm have something else in mind, but we guess this is one way to get around the issue: Verizon has apparently lost patience with the ongoing tiff between Broadcom and Qualcomm that ultimately led to a ban on the import of some of the latter's 3G chipsets, opting instead to just pay Broadcom to license the affected patents itself. The agreement gives Verizon free reign to import all the 3G silicon it needs in exchange for $6 per handset, capping out at $40 million per quarter with a lifetime max of $200 million (oh, and Verizon promises to stop supporting Qualcomm's efforts to overturn the chip ban, too). Not a bad deal, we'd say, considering the totally critical nature of the chips to Verizon Wireless' core business -- kinda makes Verizon look like the parent and the two chip vendors like irrational, inconsolable toddlers, does it not?






