Qualcomm outs Gobi universal mobile chips supporting multiple LTE bands

QUALCOMM has recently announced the fifth generation of Gobi platform for mobile baseband. This platform is also said to be able to support multiple LTE bands on a single device for 4G connectivity. The MDM9615 and MDM9215 are the two Gobi 4G LTE wireless baseband modems that delivers high speed connectivity on FDD and TDD networks, with backward compatibility to both HSPA+ and EV-DO networks.

The new baseband modems will also allow single devices to support UMTS 3G as well as CDMA EvDo 3G and even the new LTE 4G standard. FDD technology is used by both CDMA and ACDMA/UMTS for most modern cellular systems. It will be mostly used by the LTE providers which includes AT&T and Verizon in the US. QUALCOMM also owns both the patents that support CDMA and WCDMA technologies.

However the TDD which can also be termed as the alternate for using the LTE standard is developed by China and is currently being deployed in China by the name of TD-LTE. As QUALCOMM is putting both FDD and TDD support on a single device, their chipset will be able to work on both 3G and 4G networks.

Apple has been using the Qualcomm chips since the launch of iPhone 4 on Verizon. Although the iPhone was taking advantage of Verizon’s CDMA network but was not using the chip capability to work also on UMTS networks. But the iPhone 4S released later was capable of using either network although the carrier doesn’t allow moving from locked iPhone 4S to another carrier.

There is a possibility that iPad 3 will shift exclusively to Gobi baseband chips, which will let the universal 3G model to work across any provider. However, it might adopt 4G LTE features and Qualcomm’s latest MDM9xxx line would allow for a single model capable of supporting any carrier including China’s TD-LTE.

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