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Qualcomm at MWC: Mirasol displays coming to smartphones, Sony to use GOBI, femtocell chipsets are in da portfolio

By: , IntoMobile
Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 3:29 AM

Qualcomm logo

Qualcomm is full of news at this year’s Mobile World Congress. There are three important announcements the American company has releases. Let’s quickly go through each one of them.

  • First the company’s subsidiary Qualcomm MEMS Technologies along with Inventec unveiled the design specifications of the first smartphone to feature Qualcomm’s mirasol display – the Inventec V112. The device in question comes with a 1.1″ bichrome mirasol display as a secondary screen below the main display. The idea is to save power by redirecting display content from the primary display to the low-power mirasol screen, which can show such information as incoming calls, missed calls, email and SMS alerts, MP3 song titles and track ID information. The V112 includes a touchscreen covering the mirasol display, enabling users to navigate on the main display with the secondary one. Full press release is here.
  • On the similar note, LG announced that it will begin the development of mirasol-enabled handsets. (release)
  • Then, we’ve learned that Sony will use Qualcomm’s GOBI mobile internet technology in its VAIO notebooks. Initially, the VAIO Z, TT and new, ultra-cool P series will be the first GOBI-enabled computers, providing users with mobile broadband access and GPS functionality. Having those two on your laptop can’t harm anyone. (release)
  • Qualcomm also introduced the “industry’s first” chipset solution for smartphones supporting CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B and Simultaneous Voice-Data Operation (SV-DO), as well as multi-carrier HSPA+ and LTE. The Mobile Station Modem MSM8960 chipset is the complete integrated solution that supports all of the world’s leading mobile broadband standards. It’s compatible with smartphone platforms based on Qualcomm’s other MSM8x60 chipsets, hence delivering significant economies of scale to device manufacturers. The MSM8960 is scheduled to sample in mid-2010. (release)
  • Finally, Qualcomm announced that it has added 3G femtocell chipsets to its product roadmap. The company will be offering Femtocell Station Modem chipsets that will be the industry’s first to utilize the broadband speeds of 3GPP HSPA+, in addition to utilizing CDMA2000, including 1X and EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B. The chipsets will include baseband functions, network listen and integrated RF capabilities for all major wireless bands, as well as innovative techniques addressing the issue of interference between femtocells and the macro network. This, however, won’t happen anytime soon as the sampling is scheduled for Q2 2010. (release)

That’s about all the Qualcomm news that could be of interest to our readers. Moving on…

About The Author

Dusan Belic

Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.