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peter.clarke
s5351b
Wimax - typical of Intel to spend money on the wrong horse. It was clear from ...
Intel says no LTE integration until 2014
Peter Clarke
1/28/2013 7:21 AM EST
LONDON – Intel Corp. is making progress with its development of LTE modems but does not expect to have an integrated LTE modem and application processor until 2014, according to CEO Paul Otellini.
When asked specifically about integration of LTE modem circuitry with a mobile application processor such as the Atom during an analysts' conference call held to discuss Intel's fourth quarter 2012 financial results, Otellini said: "In terms of integrated solutions, you'll see higher levels of integration from us next year."
During the call, Otellini said Intel was shipping a data-only mode LTE modem IC to customers and that a data-and-voice multimode modem would ship during the course of 2013. He added that he expects the first mobile phones with Intel supplied LTE capability to have launched early in 2014 at about the time of the Mobile World Congress.
The lack of an integrated baseband modem and processor for mobile applications puts Intel some way behind Qualcomm Inc. (San Diego), which already offers integrated LTE capability in its Snapdragon line of application processors. Other companies with chips that integrate the application processor with the baseband modem include Renesas Mobile with its MP6530 and ST-Ericsson NV with its NovaThor L8580 ModAp chip implemented in 28-nm fully-depleted silicon on insulator process technology.
Intel's wireless capabilities are largely derived from the company’s acquisition of the wireless business unit of Infineon Technologies AG (Munich, Germany) completed in January 2013.
Otellini said the former Infineon team is making good progress in LTE: "We believe we have a very competitive solution. The Infineon team is known for not necessarily being first to market, but being really good at engineering a very solid solution and being cost effective and cost competitive and I think that they are doing a very good job with respect to this product." He added that Intel has many of the technologies for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS location detection and near field communications in house and would offer levels of integration that make sense at the right time.
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eewiz
1/28/2013 10:29 AM EST
That will be too late.. Even for the low end market... The one thing Intel had to do get some market share was this...And they are late!.. May be they can sell some Atom chips to non brand Wifi only tablet makers! Or bundle with baseband chip for a deep discount!
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JAK620
1/28/2013 3:48 PM EST
I agree with the fact that Intel is late in the smartphone APU + LTE sector.
Apple was not early on reinventing their Mac product line. Apple was late on getting into the phone market. Google was late when Yahoo was the dominating search engine giant. Android was several years late than iOS. Samsung was late on pretty much everything. MS was decades late on getting their hands dirty in the gaming industry.
The thing is that the tech industry is very dynamic. It is never too late to innovate and change as long as the team has good vision and stays on the course towards it.
Regarding all the fuss about Intel in critical condition, I think that it is way too early to conclude.
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JAK620
1/28/2013 3:53 PM EST
I agree with the fact that Intel is late in the sector of smartphone APU + LTE.
Apple was late when they reinvented the Mac product line. It was very late to enter the phone market. Google had to compete with the then search engine giant, Yahoo. Android was many years behind iOS when it started. Samsung was late on pretty much everything... and the list goes on.
The thing is that this industry is very dynamic. It is never too late to innovate and change as long as the team has good vision and stays on the course towards it.
Regarding all the fuss about Intel in critical condition. I think that it is way... too early to conclude.
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GroovyGeek
1/29/2013 12:46 AM EST
jak620, I tend to agree with your statements, the only counterpoint being that this is Intel's third or fourth go at this and it is still off. Even Microsoft tended to get it right by v.3. And the one thing not clear about Intel's mobile chips is whether they intend to have anything different than what you can already buy from others. It will be interesting to watch this unfold. Intel is way too aggressive a company with with too many resources to be counted out.
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GeeKv2
1/29/2013 3:30 AM EST
This is really Infineon's fault. They never had the resources (money and people) to focus on R&D for LTE as they were too busy working on customer projects. This was also one of the reasons they sold it. Intel has been in this game for only 2 years now and thats not enough to roll out LTE chips
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TobiasX
1/31/2013 10:51 AM EST
talking before thinking, a engineer would do it the other way round
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Tsantes
1/29/2013 8:38 AM EST
Looks like Otellini is getting out just in time!
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s5351b
1/29/2013 12:32 PM EST
I think it is a typical problem of many acquisitions in the communication space done by Intel over the past 20 years - none of them worked. The most similar example was DSPC that Intel bought 15 years ago and sold several years later to Marvel at half price. Intel will try to do the same here but it will be much tougher to find a buyer because the market changed and there are not so many potential interested parties (maybe none - see TI and Freescale efforts to divest their wireless activities and ST failing venture).
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Adele.Hars
1/30/2013 5:38 AM EST
Nice to see ST-E's part of this conversation -- looks like their FD-SOI solution may let them leap-frog to the forefront. Such is the power of disruptive solutions!
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tb1
1/30/2013 3:47 PM EST
I remember when Intel set the standard for putting WiFi in portables, which changed the industry.
They tried it again with WiMax (do you remember the WiMax portables?) But, as with Sprint, they were too...early. The industry is now standardizing on LTE which came after WiMax.
The problem with LTE is that there are so many broadcasting bands of LTE (and more that will be converted to LTE later) and even two types of LTE (TD-LTE, FD-LTE). How do you make a chip that can handle all of the present and future broadcasting bands of LTE and advanced LTE?
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s5351b
2/1/2013 1:40 PM EST
Wimax - typical of Intel to spend money on the wrong horse. It was clear from outset that Wimax had slim chance to succeed!
Qualcomm does not see any problem with LTE and THEY ARE SHIPPING!
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TobiasX
1/31/2013 10:48 AM EST
Intel (Infineon) did so, chip is called SMARTi4G.
Seems like too many people here didn't get it that Intel has a ready to go LTE, HSPA, ... solution just like the competitors, there's only no LTE integration into their App.Proc. available yet...
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GeeKv2
1/31/2013 3:54 PM EST
Right. So you are saying just the Smarti4G rf chip is enough to make a modem. Ever heard of baseband and protocol stack?
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TobiasX
2/1/2013 3:16 AM EST
Whole Platform is available ... i don't know what you want ...
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peter.clarke
2/4/2013 11:56 AM EST
@TobiasX
I think what they want is it in one chip...like Snapdragon from Qualcomm
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