Qualcomm intros 28nm mass market LTE/DC-HSPA+ chipsets for mobile broadband products

BARCELONA, SPAIN: Qualcomm Inc. has announced two new devices in its family of Mobile Data Modem (MDM) chipsets, the MDM9615 and MDM8215.

The next generation MDM9615 will support LTE (FDD and TDD), DC-HSPA+, EV-DO Rev-B and TD-SCDMA and the MDM8215 will support DC-HSPA+. These chipsets will be fabricated using the 28nm technology node and are anticipated to further drive broadband data products into the mass market on 3G and 4G networks, worldwide.

"As networks evolve to support faster wireless technologies, device OEMs will need to quickly and cost efficiently develop new mobile wireless broadband data products that support these emerging technologies," said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. "Qualcomm's MDM9615 and MDM8215 chipset's comprehensive RF band support, pin compatibility and common software baseline will enable OEMs to develop multi-mode LTE or DC-HSPA+ device variants with minimal development costs across their worldwide customer base."

The MDM9615 and MDM8215 chipsets will be highly-optimized follow-on products to the MDM9600 and MDM8220 product family. Both chipsets will provide enhancements in modem performance, power consumption, board area and BOM expense. For example, the new chipsets will feature a dedicated processor that will allow OEMs to differentiate their products through the addition of value added services, and they will be able to develop Wi-Fi hotspot products without requiring an external application processor.

Both chipsets will be compatible with Qualcomm's Power Optimized Envelope Tracking (Q-POET) solution that provides further power consumption and thermal improvements allowing for smaller device form factors.

These chips will also offer best-in-class modem performance by incorporating the latest version of Qualcomm's Interference Cancellation & Equalization (Q-ICE) algorithm - leading to higher user data throughputs and increased network capacity. In addition to LTE TDD, the MSM9615 will also support TD-SCDMA, making it an optimized chipset solution well-suited for the Chinese mobile broadband market.

The MDM9615 and MDM8215 are designed to pair up with the WTR1605 radio frequency IC and PM8018 power management IC to provide a highly integrated chipset solution. The WTR1605 will be Qualcomm's first Radio Transceiver in Wafer Level Package and will be a highly integrated radio transceiver with multi-mode (LTE FDD, LTE TDD, CDMA, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, GSM) and multi-band support.

The WTR1605 will be optimized for low power consumption and small footprint and will integrate a high performance GPS core with GLONASS support. Samples of the MDM9615, MDM8215, WTR1605 and PM8018 are anticipated to be available in late 2011.