Infineon has done quite the stealth job of releasing its SMARTi LU transceiver chip. But despite the company’s silence, this transceiver chip has some potentially serious uses. It’s the first single-chip radio with 4G Long Term Evolution support, designed with a 45nm manufacturing process keeping the chip small. Like iPhone small.
Given Apple’s current relationship with Infineon–iPhone’s have always used Infineon transceivers and the 3G model uses an Infineon GPS chip–it’s not far-fetched to believe we could see the SMARTi LU transceiver in next-generation iPhone models.
The chip also includes the HSPA+ standard (more like 3.5-3.75G), and legacy support for 2G GSM and EDGE standards. The company builds the baseband interface right into the chip.
The Long Term Evolution standard is a fourth generation technology that will directly compete against WiMAX. WiMAX has a bit of a head start, now officially available in Baltimore and Portland, but most experts believe that if the two 4G standards can’t work in tandem, LTE will be the reigning 4G standard in the end. LTE is expected to be available early in 2010 through Bell, Telus, Verizon, Vodafone and other carriers. AT&T will support HSPA+ data speeds this year.
Should an iPhone use the SMARTi LU chip, once LTE networks are available, it would be able to download data as quickly as 150 Mbps and upload at 50 Mbps. That’s approximately 100 times faster than the download and upload speeds the iPhone is currently capable of on 3G networks. HSPA+ supports download speeds averaging 21 Mbps.
Just imagine.
via electronista
