Nvidia Enters Next-Gen LTE Pact With Suppliers

Nvidia is partnering with several cellular silicon suppliers to add LTE support to the Tegra 3 SoC, allowing OEMs to quickly add 4G LTE to their current Tegra 3 designs.

On Thursday, Nvidia announced a partnership that will in time put the company in the same league as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm who provide integrated SoC/modem combo solutions for the mobile market.

Earlier this week, Nvidia introduced the very first all-chip smartphone, the ZTE Mimosa X, which features both Nvidia's Tegra 2 SoC and its Icera 450 HSPA+ modem. But this new deal has Nvidia teaming up with GCT Semiconductor and Renesas Mobile to add LTE support to its quad-core Tegra 3 SoC. This is a good thing, as the marriage will help smartphone makers get their products to the market faster.

Typically if manufacturers don't go with Qualcomm or Texas Instruments, they must work with two separate companies (one for processor, one for modem) when creating their device. But with Nvidia, GCT and Renesas working together, the new agreement eliminates that bottleneck, allowing OEMs to take their current Tegra 3-powered products to the next level by adding 4G LTE... and with a lightning-fast time frame to the market at that.

"This will let more users in more markets access the award-winning performance capabilities, next-gen games, and lightning fast apps enabled by Tegra," said Nvidia's Phil Carmack. "This [also] helps push the envelope on the overall mobile experience. Through fast data access offered by LTE, users get even better multiplayer gaming options, lightning fast web browsing, supercharged app downloads… and the list goes on and on."

Additional details surrounding the new partnership will be revealed next week during MWC 2012.