VZW Galaxy Nexus LTE Chipset?

[mcaspe1]

Does anyone know what the Galaxy Nexus will be using for a LTE chipset? I know the processor is the TI OMAP 4460 chipset which is rather newly released but what model and generation LTE chipset is Samsung using now? I know this little piece of hardware has a lot to do with battery life, which is important to me as well as a lot of us out there. Motorola delayed the Bionic because they didn't want to use the latest chipset that everyone else was using (Thunderbolt, Droid Charge) so they made their own. I hope we will be getting a more up to date LTE modem than what is presently being used in the older handsets. I also know that Panda told us that the battery life is better than the bionic on LTE but why is that? I know ICS and the processor probably have a lot to do with it but what about the LTE chipset?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Holsum]

im almost 100% percent positive that Verizon uses Qualcomm's LTE chip like they do for the iphone 4.

 

[edoublediz]

im almost 100% percent positive that Verizon uses Qualcomm's LTE chip like they do for the iphone 4.

What? iphone4 doesnt have LTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[milan03]

Does anyone know what the Galaxy Nexus will be using for a LTE chipset? I know the processor is the TI OMAP 4460 chipset which is rather newly released but what model and generation LTE chipset is Samsung using now? I know this little piece of hardware has a lot to do with battery life, which is important to me as well as a lot of us out there. Motorola delayed the Bionic because they didn't want to use the latest chipset that everyone else was using (Thunderbolt, Droid Charge) so they made their own. I hope we will be getting a more up to date LTE modem than what is presently being used in the older handsets. I also know that Panda told us that the battery life is better than the bionic on LTE but why is that? I know ICS and the processor probably have a lot to do with it but what about the LTE chipset?

Thanks in advance.

Well looking back at the Droid Charge, Samsung used their own in house CMC220 LTE baseband and not Qualcomm's MDM9600. To go one step further, Droid Charge didnt even use Qualcomm chipset to handle 1X/EVDO. It used VIA Telecom?s CPB7.1 baseband, which is rather odd choice, but it worked just fine. My bet is on CMC220 or it's variant. Now when I say variant, I don't mean any out of the ordinary super power efficient lower die processor. I mean the same manufacturing technology (45nm) just possibly a bit better optimized (if that's even possible).
28nm Manufacturing mills are not even existent at this time, so let's not hope for miraculous battery life here.
The biggest problem is the fact the LTE basebands don't do voice, so all the current LTE phones have to have two different baseband chips one responsible for always on 1X/voice connection, and the 2nd for data.
Until we try the phone, no one will be answer these kinds of questions.
Hope this helps.

 

[brinox]

im almost 100% percent positive that Verizon uses Qualcomm's LTE chip like they do for the iphone 4.

this statement is truly mind-boggling. W-T-F!

 

[CynicX]

this statement is truly mind-boggling. W-T-F!

IPhones sell man. It doesn't actually need LTE, as long as people think it does they will buy it..

 

[milan03]

Which takes us even further away from the topic... :-\

 

[mcaspe1]

Well looking back at the Droid Charge, Samsung used their own in house CMC220 LTE baseband and not Qualcomm's MDM9600. To go one step further, Droid Charge didnt even use Qualcomm chipset to handle 1X/EVDO. It used VIA Telecom?s CPB7.1 baseband, which is rather odd choice, but it worked just fine. My bet is on CMC220 or it's variant. Now when I say variant, I don't mean any out of the ordinary super power efficient lower die processor. I mean the same manufacturing technology (45nm) just possibly a bit better optimized (if that's even possible).
28nm Manufacturing mills are not even existent at this time, so let's not hope for miraculous battery life here.
The biggest problem is the fact the LTE basebands don't do voice, so all the current LTE phones have to have two different baseband chips one responsible for always on 1X/voice connection, and the 2nd for data.
Until we try the phone, no one will be answer these kinds of questions.
Hope this helps.

That pretty much answers it. Thank you.

 

[milan03]

That pretty much answers it. Thank you.

You're welcome.

 

[borgey401]

Well looking back at the Droid Charge, Samsung used their own in house CMC220 LTE baseband and not Qualcomm's MDM9600. To go one step further, Droid Charge didnt even use Qualcomm chipset to handle 1X/EVDO. It used VIA Telecom?s CPB7.1 baseband, which is rather odd choice, but it worked just fine. My bet is on CMC220 or it's variant. Now when I say variant, I don't mean any out of the ordinary super power efficient lower die processor. I mean the same manufacturing technology (45nm) just possibly a bit better optimized (if that's even possible).
28nm Manufacturing mills are not even existent at this time, so let's not hope for miraculous battery life here.
The biggest problem is the fact the LTE basebands don't do voice, so all the current LTE phones have to have two different baseband chips one responsible for always on 1X/voice connection, and the 2nd for data.
Until we try the phone, no one will be answer these kinds of questions.
Hope this helps.

Can't break it down any better than this to be honest. Anything further then this is all speculation...

 

[Holsum]

What? iphone4 doesnt have LTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My apologies i meant cdma 3g modem

 

[mbaran]

Well looking back at the Droid Charge, Samsung used their own in house CMC220 LTE baseband and not Qualcomm's MDM9600. To go one step further, Droid Charge didnt even use Qualcomm chipset to handle 1X/EVDO. It used VIA Telecom?s CPB7.1 baseband, which is rather odd choice, but it worked just fine. My bet is on CMC220 or it's variant. Now when I say variant, I don't mean any out of the ordinary super power efficient lower die processor. I mean the same manufacturing technology (45nm) just possibly a bit better optimized (if that's even possible).
28nm Manufacturing mills are not even existent at this time, so let's not hope for miraculous battery life here.
The biggest problem is the fact the LTE basebands don't do voice, so all the current LTE phones have to have two different baseband chips one responsible for always on 1X/voice connection, and the 2nd for data.
Until we try the phone, no one will be answer these kinds of questions.
Hope this helps.

I for one HOPE that this ends up being false. The LTE on the Charge is speedwise and reliabilitywise behind the TB. My 4g always cycles down to 3g/1x and sometimes to no data on the charge. I hope they've developed a better chipset or a more stable driver.

 

[Holsum]

Well looking back at the Droid Charge, Samsung used their own in house CMC220 LTE baseband and not Qualcomm's MDM9600. To go one step further, Droid Charge didnt even use Qualcomm chipset to handle 1X/EVDO. It used VIA Telecom?s CPB7.1 baseband, which is rather odd choice, but it worked just fine. My bet is on CMC220 or it's variant. Now when I say variant, I don't mean any out of the ordinary super power efficient lower die processor. I mean the same manufacturing technology (45nm) just possibly a bit better optimized (if that's even possible).
28nm Manufacturing mills are not even existent at this time, so let's not hope for miraculous battery life here.
The biggest problem is the fact the LTE basebands don't do voice, so all the current LTE phones have to have two different baseband chips one responsible for always on 1X/voice connection, and the 2nd for data.
Until we try the phone, no one will be answer these kinds of questions.
Hope this helps.

This is somewhat innacurate. 28nm mills are done and 2nd gen lte chips will be 1st or 2nd quarter. This is both processor AND lte modem chips. Motorola went with VIA telecoms chip because Sanjay was spitting qualcomm after not getting ceo so he left for motorola and didnt use their chips. Samsung manufactures chips so i would assume they would go with their own unless their 28nm chips arent rdy. Also, lte-advanced does carry voice and will be rolling out on sprint later next year.

 

[milan03]

I for one HOPE that this ends up being false. The LTE on the Charge is speedwise and reliabilitywise behind the TB. My 4g always cycles down to 3g/1x and sometimes to no data on the charge. I hope they've developed a better chipset or a more stable driver.

BMX said himself that Galaxy Nexus performs on par with Bionic, which in my own experience produces far better latency/throughput than my ThunderBolt. So if it performs as good as Bionic, I'll certainly be happy. Occasional LTE connection drops were due to firmware and network being optimized, I've seen the same on my ThunderBolt.
That said, Bionic uses Moto home brewed LTE baseband which (after digging through FCC documents) appears to be only category 2 LTE chipset. Charge's CMC220 and Qualcomm's MDM9600 are both Category 3, with theoretical limits of 100mbps download and 50mbps upload.

The real limiting factor is Verizon's 2x10Mhz FDD LTE service that gives up theoretical throughput of 73.6mbps download and 26.3mbps upload. I've seen myself speeds over 60mbps occasionally (see my signature) on my Thunderbolt, and over 50mbps here in NYC being easily achievable. ThunderBolt 4G LTE 56mbps SpeedTest - YouTube

So to sum it all up, whatever chipset Samsung ends up using for Nexus, performance will still be better than what you've seen on first generation handsets including Charge.

 

[milan03]

This is somewhat innacurate. 28nm mills are done and 2nd gen lte chips will be 1st or 2nd quarter. This is both processor AND lte modem chips. Motorola went with VIA telecoms chip because Sanjay was spitting qualcomm after not getting ceo so he left for motorola and didnt use their chips. Samsung manufactures chips so i would assume they would go with their own unless their 28nm chips arent rdy. Also, lte-advanced does carry voice and will be rolling out on sprint later next year.

Totally inaccurate. 28nm mills are still not finished, Qualcomm is working on it. And LTE-Advanced chipsets (Release 9, Category 4) aren't gonna be available till Q3 2013!!! I'm not sure what you've been smoking. Also Samsung will most likely go with their home brewed SoC, but they make nothing using 28nm technology not sure why would you think that Nexus will be an exception...
Sprint announced that they'll be rolling out needed infrastructure for LTE-A, they never said that their LTE-A service will be ready next year carrying voice over LTE...

Here is Qualcomm's internal Road map:

 

[robrecht]

Totally inaccurate. 28nm mills are still not finished, Qualcomm is working on it. And LTE-Advanced chipsets (Release 9, Category 4) aren't gonna be available till Q3 2013!!! I'm not sure what you've been smoking. Also Samsung will most likely go with their home brewed SoC, but they make nothing using 28nm technology not sure why would you think that Nexus will be an exception...
Sprint announced that they'll be rolling out needed infrastructure for LTE-A, they never said that their LTE-A service will be ready next year carrying voice over LTE...

Here is Qualcomm's internal Road map:

Yeah, not only is Samsung not yet using 28nm, but their next step will be 32nm:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4900/samsung-talks-about-32nm-15ghz-exynos-soc

Thanks, Robrecht

 

[milan03]

Yeah, not only is Samsung not yet using 28nm, but their next step will be 32nm:
AnandTech - Samsung Talks About 32nm 1.5GHz Exynos SoC

Thanks, Robrecht

Exactly. The new Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 coming Q2 2012 will have everything possible integrated on a since SoC die, using 28nm. The entire system on chip, as well as all the baseband radios, including LTE and 1x/WCDMA. That alone will solve battery issues, as the single chip will be able to handle both voice and data, as well as central processing unit. It's based on the same MDM9615/MSN8960 combination. AnandTech - Qualcomm's New Snapdragon S4: MSM8960 & Krait Architecture Explored

 

[Jdm4292]

BMX said himself that Galaxy Nexus performs on par with Bionic, which in my own experience produces far better latency/throughput than my ThunderBolt. So if it performs as good as Bionic, I'll certainly be happy. Occasional LTE connection drops were due to firmware and network being optimized, I've seen the same on my ThunderBolt.
That said, Bionic uses Moto home brewed LTE baseband which (after digging through FCC documents) appears to be only category 2 LTE chipset. Charge's CMC220 and Qualcomm's MDM9600 are both Category 3, with theoretical limits of 100mbps download and 50mbps upload.

The real limiting factor is Verizon's 2x10Mhz FDD LTE service that gives up theoretical throughput of 73.6mbps download and 26.3mbps upload. I've seen myself speeds over 60mbps occasionally (see my signature) on my Thunderbolt, and over 50mbps here in NYC being easily achievable. ThunderBolt 4G LTE 56mbps SpeedTest - YouTube

So to sum it all up, whatever chipset Samsung ends up using for Nexus, performance will still be better than what you've seen on first generation handsets including Charge.

Is the radio In the bionic reliable? Better than the crappy tbolt one? I lose data all the time in areas with great coverage.. for no reason.

Sent from my ADR6400L

 

[Adrynalyne]

Is the radio In the bionic reliable? Better than the crappy tbolt one? I lose data all the time in areas with great coverage.. for no reason.

Sent from my ADR6400L

There are many reasons for it. Never for no reason.

You lose data because its switching from 4G to 3G or vice versa.

The Tbolt is slow to switch.

Same when waking the device.

The Bionic has some similar issues, but may not be as severe.

 

[milan03]

Is the radio In the bionic reliable? Better than the crappy tbolt one? I lose data all the time in areas with great coverage.. for no reason.

Sent from my ADR6400L

Depends on what is reliable for you. If you're talking only about the connectivity issues, the latest Gingerbread OTA with the latest radios solves it. Also the GPS locks much faster. Don't forget Thunderbolt was the very first LTE handset on Verizon's LTE network, which makes it a milestone, but also very buggy first gen device.