Broadcom Corp. has created chipsets with 4G technology that would bring fast connectivity to low-cost smartphones.
In November 2013, analysts from the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimated that smartphone shipments will increase to 1.7 billion units and 408.6 million for tablets by 2017. However, the average selling prices of devices are decreasing. The market research company attributed this projection on the popularity of lower priced models. Those tablets and smart phones priced lower than $350 will make up 68 percent of shipments. This will soon change the average retail prices of gadgets to $323 per unit by 2017 compared from the $462 in 2012.
However, majority of lower-cost mobile phones are just running on 3G networks.
To enhance user surfing experience, the American fables semiconductor company decided to create a better 4G technology intended for the use of mobile phones that cost less than $300. With the new reference platform, low-cost smartphones will be able to run on the rapidly expanding 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, said Robert Rango, executive vice president and general manager of Broadcom's Mobile and Wireless Group.
"Broadcom's turnkey team achieved a design with a very low cost bill of material ... to enable handset companies to quickly and efficiently take Broadcom's LTE solutions to market," Rango said in a statement to eWeek. "In addition, this turnkey design is flexible and allows OEMs to build a wide range of LTE handsets."
The new chipsets, which are in production now, is for Broadcom's dual-core M320 LTE system-on-a-chip (SoC), and will be pin-to-pin compatible with the company's upcoming quad-core M340 LTE SoC.
It will be a part of the company's larger presentation of its mobile technologies in the 2014 Mobile World Congress show, which will be held in Barcelona, Spain on Feb. 24 to 27. It is also said to support Google's Android 4.4 operating system (KitKat).
