HTC said to be dipping into Ericsson's silicon for 3.5G chipsets

Digitimes claims that HTC intends to launch a 10-strong mix of WinMo and Android handsets in 2009 -- sounds about right, if we had to guess -- and not all of 'em will be Qualcomm powered. Apparently, HTC's HSPA devices will employ guts from Ericsson's Mobile Platforms group, and as lucrative contracts go, the HTC's chipset contract going into a serious Android year has to be at or near the top. Funny how HTC makes the X1 for Sony Ericsson and Ericsson makes chips for HTC, but business is business, eh?

[Via wmpoweruser.com]

[000000 Posted Jan 7th 2009 4:25PM]

Any news of U.S. 3G support? ATT?

[zephxiii Posted Jan 7th 2009 4:48PM]

haha...what?? f*@! qualcomm??

[DonutYankee Posted Jan 7th 2009 5:43PM]

And thus, we can finally end the Qualcomm drivers and performance drama with HTC.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 7th 2009 6:19PM]

Good move on HTC's part to hedge against Qualcomm's overblown performance claims. EMP seems to be a very proven platform with stellar Java/graphics numbers.

Question is can it support Windows Mobile properly since Qualcomm (with their deep stakes in BREW) couldn't?

[mingkee Posted Jan 7th 2009 6:22PM]

probably HTC is in favor with U380 quad-3G chip
it may be a good news for T-Mobile

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 8th 2009 2:59AM]

Actually, if they go with Ericsson's U500 platform, it would definitely make Snapdragon DOA if U500 delivers on schedule. U500 has the ARM Mali 3D in it, besides triple ARM11s, and also hardware acceleration.

All paper though until it hits GLBenchmark and SPB Benchmark.

[corneliusm Posted Jan 8th 2009 5:41PM]

Snapdragon is vaporware for all I'm concerned. It's been a year and a half since it's been announced, and I haven't still heard of any devices on the horizon employing it.

Besides, Qualcomm's a la carte pricing model (and exaggerated performance numbers) means that they'll be heavily crippled (like the MSM72xx chips) by the time they reach consumers.

I'm hoping this HTC-SE deal will mean that my next HTC smartphone will actually be able to do simple tasks like playing VGA res video without studdering.

[PHug Posted Jan 7th 2009 7:54PM]

Why is no one supporting Nvidia's chipsets?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 7th 2009 10:52PM]

Because Nvidia doesn't support themselves either. Same with ATI on the Qualcomms.

[220v Posted Jan 8th 2009 7:24PM]

Actually, the punchline is it will probably be Ericsson and nvidia in one solution.