Date: 21/02/2012

Smart Phone IC from Renesas supports LTE/HSPA+

Renesas Mobile has announced the availability of the MP5232 for designing high volume LTE/HSPA+ capable smartphones, tablets and mobile Internet devices in the price range of $150 to $200.

The ARM A9 processor core powered MP5232 packs modem, application processor, RF transceivers, power management and audio.

"We are seeing a number of US$600+ LTE super phone devices being launched in the market, but the industry needs a wider penetration of LTE devices for the business case for LTE to pay off," commented Jean-Marie Rolland, CTO and Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Renesas Mobile Corporation. "The MP5232 platform represents a new category of mobile platform optimised to increase the number of fully-featured, LTE high volume smartphones in the market. By integrating high performing, proven technologies the platform offers a low risk path for device manufacturers to create high volume, premium capability LTE multi-mode products for multiple market segments quickly and effectively, without having to make any compromises in terms of features or user experience."

"The whole mobile industry is undoubtedly committed to LTE as the technology of choice for 4G services. However, it becomes increasingly challenging adding LTE to an already packed mobile devices that are required to support different legacy modes and bands," said Malik Saadi, Principal Analyst, Informa Telecoms and Media. "In order to achieve global economies, vendors are keen to offer LTE multiband and multimode devices capable of roaming across different networks and regions, without compromising price, user experience, form factor, or power consumption."

The platform supports differentiating features including multi-camera and multi-display support, full HD 1080p multi-format video encoding/decoding, and stereoscopic 3D (S3D) video.

Availability: Samples of the MP5232 platform are available Q1 2012 to lead OEM's in the form of reference designs together with supporting documentation, software and hardware. Pricing is available on request.