LONDON — Qualcomm Inc. is delivering on the promise of its Snapdragon platform and has started shipping the first two chipsets in the range to device manufacturers.
The company will be demonstrating some of these handsets at an upcoming analyst meeting in New York, with version on show running on both Windows Mobile and Linux operating systems.
The QSD8250 and QSD8650 are the first chips based on the Snapdragon platform, the company's multi-mode development platform for wideband CDMA, CDMA2000 and higher data rate follow-on versions of the communications standards.
The platform integrates a 1-GHz control processor called Scorpion based on ARM's Cortex instruction set supported by an array of 600-MHz DSP and accelerator cores for baseband and video processing that offer 128-bit single instruction multiple data functionality.
One of the handsets on view is from Taiwanese mobile device maker HTC Corporation, a long term partner of the chipmaker. Peter Chou, chief executive of HTC said the companies "have been working together for many years on raising the bar for the mobile market, pushing forward on delivering new capabilities."
The QSD8250 supports HSPA data rates of up to 7.2 Mbits/second on the downlink and 5.76 on the uplink, with full backward compatibility. The dual-mode QSD8650 supports HSPA, as well as CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B, with full backward compatibility.
"As we expand from the traditional wireless handset market, Qualcomm's Snapdragon platform will be the catalyst for a new era of innovative computing and consumer wireless mobile devices," said Sanjay Jha, president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.
Jha added Snapdragon's support for HD video decode, 12 megapixel camera, GPS, broadcast TV (using MediaFLO, DVBH-H and/or ISDB-T), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth deliver even greater opportunities for handset makers to design tightly integrated and small factor products.
Earlier this week, Qualcomm (San Diego, Calif.) extended its Mobile Station Modem range and said it is sampling the MSM6246 HSDPA capable part and the MSM6290 HSUPA chipset. Both feature Integrated Assisted-GPS and high-speed USB support, and interface with the RTR6285 single-chip CMOS transceiver.
