TdScdma
Latest
Marvell PXA988, PXA986 chips support 3G for China, the world without reinventing the wheel (or phone)
Whenever we see a smartphone optimized for China Mobile's TD-SCDMA 3G, it usually represents one of two things: it's either a China-specific variant of a phone we already know, or it's a local-only model that's unlikely to ever travel abroad. Marvell has just unveiled a new mobile processor platform that could allow for a lot more globetrotting with those basic designs. The PXA988 is limited to China Mobile's technology for data, but its PXA986 doppelganger can fit the same slot to offer regular HSPA+ 3G without forcing phone makers back to the drawing board. Both run on a dual-core, 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 at their heart -- nothing exciting in mid-2012, although they're well-enough equipped to capture 1080p video and tout extras like NFC. Only test samples exist today, but there's a chance we'll soon see phone designs that are just as much at home in Berlin as they are in Beijing.
Marvell announces 1.2GHz UMTS / TD-SCMA chip 'world phone' solution and Kinoma platform for Android (video)
Claiming to be the "world's first" single chip solution with 3G UMTS and China's fave TD-SCDMA (with HSPA support), Marvell's using its MWC 2011 time to unveil the PXA978 chip with 1.2GHz clockspeeds and a 40nm size. Alongside that, the company's announced Kinoma Play as a barebones, no-nonsense platform with Android underneath the skin. A developer SDK is in the works, and if you're so inclined, video and press releases are after the break. Rest assured, we'll be swinging by Marvell's booth this week to see it for ourselves.
China Mobile delivers production 3G network in time for Olympics
A nice, thick blanket of 3G might still be years away for China, but who the heck knows -- if they can keep fast-tracking it like they're doing here, maybe they can tighten up that schedule just a teensy bit. After kicking off a trial... like, whoa, this month, China Mobile has already blessed a large enough swath of its nascent TD-SCDMA coverage to deliver some 15,000 compatible Samsung handsets, data cards, and 3 million yuan (about $430,000) worth of minutes to the Beijing Olympic Games' organizing committee this week. It's said that the hardware will be doled out to staff and volunteers helping to get the Games in order, giving them something to do with their leisure hours (we suppose) as they put the finishing touches on the many event venues spotting the city, and presumably, China will be working hard to play up its technological achievement come game time later this year. If you can call a proprietary 3G protocol that lags its CDMA and WCDMA competition by years a "technical achievement," anyway.[Via mocoNews]
