chipsets

Qualcomm it is for Windows Phone as ST-Ericsson fizzles away

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Mar 18, 2013 at 1:16 pm

Turning to other matters today, it looks like the silicon maker ST-Ericsson will soon be a thing of the past, or at least significantly de-fanged. The company is now set to be broken up with employee layoffs and the remaining legacy continuing as STMicro.

This is relevant only because back in 2011, ST-Ericsson publicly claimed a deal with Nokia to help supply their chipsets on their emerging line of low-cost Windows Phones. Indeed, their NovaThor chipset was supposed to rival that of Qualcomm, who has had a dominant role with Windows Phones from its inception.

Lumia 900 torn apart to reveal the magical kingdom inside

Windows Phone News

By Rich Edmonds, Wednesday, Apr 4, 2012 at 5:41 am

The Lumia 900 has received the 'teardown' treatment over at TechRepublic. Once dissembled, the website was able to poke around at the insides to reveal the hardware that powers the Windows Phone operating system on this device. Packing a 1.4Ghz Snapdragon CPU, 16GB storage, 512MB RAM, and an 8MP camera (with front-facing 1.3MP shooter) the Lumia 900 is no slouch when it comes to handling the day-to-day business of its owner.

In our in-depth review of the Lumia 900 we highlighted the solid build quality and polycarbonate design, which was also praised by TechRepublic. Opening the device itself is a fairly straightforward task, should you wish to take a deeper look where the fairies gather (see below video for demonstration).

Source: TechRepublic, via: The Verge

Qualcomm working with Nokia on a Windows Phone road map

Windows Phone News

By Rich Edmonds, Friday, Nov 11, 2011 at 10:16 pm

Enrico Salvatori, president of Qualcomm CDMA technologies in Europe, has informed TechRadar that the chip geniuses are working with Nokia on a roadmap of handsets, and the single core Lumia family is just the beginning.

We are working on a road map [with Nokia] and not a single device, a single launch. It's an important collaboration for Qualcomm, so we are very excited about working together. It's been very effective in terms of time to market because we developed the phone together. It's been a very successful development.

Salvatori moves onto state that it was an achievement to get the Lumia 710 and 800 to market within a tight time frame, which no one can disagree with. He also notes that Qualcomm is proud to support Windows Phone and is currently the only chipset on the game board.

The Nokia collaboration is also very much about the Windows Phone ecosystem and, of course, we at Qualcomm, as you know, are supporting on our platform the Windows Phone software and actually at the moment we are the only supplier supporting the integrated solution.

Of course, we know that ST-Ericsson is set to supply the Finnish handset manufacturer with low-end chips for more affordable devices, which Nokia (and Microsoft) are looking to introduce. There's no denying that it's going to be exciting to see what future low-end (and more advance) hardware comes to the platform.

Source: TechRadar

ST-Ericsson gets deal with Nokia to supply chipsets, breaks Qualcomm's hold on Windows Phone

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Wednesday, Nov 2, 2011 at 10:14 am

Although Qualcomm is sitting comfortably with Microsoft and Windows Phone, it looks like their monopoly on the OS has finally given in. Today, ST-Ericsson has announced a deal with Nokia to supply low-end chipsets for upcoming Windows Phones. The deal both confirms and contradicts and earlier report about Microsoft's plans, though it does reinforce earlier rumors of a Nokia-ST Ericsson alliance.

So far, Qualcomm's chipsets, while diverse and flexible in design, have only been used in "high end" phones. Microsoft and especially Nokia though have been keen on cracking the low end market found in developing/emerging countries and ST-Ericsson will reportedly help in that area. STMicro's shares were up 4% and Ericsson's was up by 2% as of the news. From ST-Ericsson:

"We are pleased to have been selected by Nokia as a key partner for Windows smartphones, in line with our goal to be present in all segments and major operating systems," said Gilles Delfassy, president and CEO of ST-Ericsson. "Our NovaThor platforms continue to gain traction as they enable customers to bring great smartphones to the market."

This is an early breaking story so we expect more details soon. The current Lumia devices (710 and 800) both use Qualcomm chipsets and that's expected to stay the same.

Source: Reuters; Finanz Nachrichten; Specs of the U8500 chipset after the break

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Nvidia Tegra chipsets finally coming for Windows Phone in 2013?

Windows Phone News
Rumors

By Daniel Rubino, Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 at 10:55 pm

For some reason, everyone is planning for 2013. Guess we should start picking out our clothes now as Nvidia evidently has plans for Windows Phone, three years after knocking it and the same year that Samsung is reportedly dropping the OS.

Nividia's Tegra chipsets have been around for awhile now, heck they even powered the ZuneHD. But besides some Android handsets, they have been absent from the Windows Phone side, leaving plenty of room for mega SoC maker Qualcomm to ride high.

In a leaked roadmap from Heise.de, we can see that in 2013 Nvidia is looking to power Windows Phone handsets using their Tegra/Icera combo "Grey" chipset. Reportedly featuring a 28mm manufacturing process and 2G/3G/4G communication capabilities (something Nvidia is missing now), the chipset looks to be as powerful as Qulcomm's offering but with some Nvidia GPU oomph.

We're still trying to make sense of the layout of this slide, but it is interesting to see Windows and Windows Phone lumped next to each other--reaffirming the notion that both OSs will become closer together, especially as Windows 8 moves to ARM processors.

Source: Heise.de; via: Fudzilla; Thanks, @darkhorse166, for the tip!

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Nokia's Windows Phones to sport dual-core ST-Ericsson U8500

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Friday, May 20, 2011 at 9:28 am

We know Qualcomm is currently the only chipset provider for Windows Phone, having invest a lot of time and money to port over their hardware. In fact, even their next gen processors are geared up for Windows Phone 7.5 devices, coming this fall. Still, that's not stopping some companies, including ST-Ericsson from attempting to break that monopoly.

Specifically, in an interview with Forbes, Carlo Bozotti, the Chief Executive of European semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics spilled the beans on a couple of interesting tidbits:

ST-Ericsson will be one of two chip suppliers for Nokia Windows Phone (the other is Qualcomm)

Nokia is planning on having 12 Windows Phone devices in 2012

The first ST-Ericsson chipset to be used will be the U8500 ",,,a sophisticated dual-core system-on-a-chip that can also be found in the new Samsung Infuse 4G smartphone on AT&T and the T-Mobile Sidekick 4G."

Later versions of the U8500 will be used in Nokia's 2012 phones

ST-Ericsson continues to have “very close relations” with Nokia

All of this sounds good to our ears. While Qualcomm's chipsets have been performing quite well as of late, we're all keen on trying some new hardware with a new engine underneath. Granted, our reviews will become a little more complicated (speed and versus tests, no doubt), but we think this is good for the platform and innovation.

Source: Forbes

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