Qualcomm’s Quad-Core Snapdragon Pro Processor Ships in LG LTE Smartphone
The deployment of Qualcomm’s APQ8064 quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor in LG Electronics and Chinese supplier Xiaomi smartphones signals the chip developer’s growing strength in its battle with Marvell Technologies, Nvidia and Samsung for design wins, analysts said. LG’s Optimus G, which along with Xiaomi’s Mi-Two, is among the first quad-core equipped LTE smartphones, features the 1.5 GHz APQ8064, along with Qualcomm’s separate Adreno graphics processing unit and MDM9615 baseband processor, Qualcomm officials said.
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The Optimus G will launch in Japan and South Korea by September, and follow in other markets, including the U.S. The Qualcomm APQ8064 features Asynchronous Symmetric Multiprocessing that allows each core to power up and down independently. The phone also has a 13-megapixel rear and 1.3-megapixel front digital cameras, enabling zoom on video playback. Also available is QMemo that’s also found in Optimus Vu to allow users to use a finger to draw, write or jot a memo on a captured screen. It also has an MHL connector, Android 4.0 operating system, 32 GB memory, 2 GB RAM, Bluetooth 4.0 and DLNA certification.
The new LG smartphone also pulls together LG Chemical, LG Innotek and LG Display, the latter providing a 4.7-inch in-plane switching LCD and a 1,280 x 720 display with 320 dots per inch pixel density. The phone is LG’s first to be equipped with LG Innotek’s G2 Touch Hybrid display that is combined with touch technology to eliminate the separate layer typically reserved for it. LG Chemical is providing the 2,100 milliampere lithium ion battery.
The design wins for APQ8064 come amid reports that Research In Motion’s (RIM) upcoming BlackBerry 10-based smartphones will contain the dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro MSM8960 processor. The MSM8960 integrates Qualcomm’s Adreno 320 graphics processor with an applications IC, company officials have said. RIM officials weren’t available for comment. A Qualcomm spokesman declined to comment on a possible supply agreement with RIM. Samsung also used the 8960 in the Galaxy III S smartphone that shipped earlier this year. Qualcomm has worked with RIM before, having previously supplied Snapdragon S2 chips for BlackBerry 7-based devices.
Qualcomm’s possible design win at RIM could cost Marvell some business, since it has been a baseband processor supplier for BlackBerry devices, analysts said. Marvell’s Q2 net income shrank to $93 million from $192.3 million a year earlier as revenue fell to $816.1 million from $897.5 million due partly to “lower volumes at our leading North American cellular customer,” CEO Sehat Sutardja said on a recent earnings call. Marvell had forecast Q2 revenue of $840 million to $890 million and analysts were targeting $853 million. Marvell didn’t identify the customer, but FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger said it’s RIM. RIM remains Marvell’s only 3G WCDMA customer six years after it bought Intel’s Xscale business, Berger said. RIM accounts for 4 to 5 percent of Marvell’s annual sales and that could shrink to 2 percent in 2013, Berger said. In addition to Qualcomm having possibly landed an agreement with RIM, Texas Instruments’ OMAP processors also have been deployed in BlackBerry products, Berger said.
Marvell introduced a smartphone reference design using its Armada PXA2128 applications processor and quad-mode baseband modem for 4G FDD LTE, TD LTE, TD-SCDMA, and WCDMA. It also is sampling the PXA1202 processor with China Mobile, Berger said. The PXA1202 is the first TD-HSPA+ modem and is capable of triple the data rates of TD-SCDMA. Marvell also is on the vendor list for Windows on ARM (WoA) platform that also includes Qualcomm, Nvidia, Texas Instruments and Huawei. WoA is a new version of Windows separate from the expected release in October of Windows 8 and is developed around ARM Holdings’ processor platform. WoA only works with ARM-based devices. WoA software won’t be sold independently of a product, while Windows 8 will be available as a separate SKU.