The NVDIA Tegra 3 chip is pretty darn powerful but it may get even faster now that a major LTE modem makers has announced support and development for the quad-core beast.
GCT Semiconductor and Renesas Mobile have signed a pact to support and develop LTE modems that are compatible with Tegra 3 and NVIDIA says this means devices will be able to come to market quickly. This is becoming more important because 4G LTE is either deployed or has plans to be deployed by the four largest U.S. carriers. Major carriers around the world are also deploying this or have it on the roadmap.
This is great news for NVIDIA, as all of the major 4G LTE handsets until now have been powered by competitors and it’s been speculated that the LTE support was the reason – although NVIDIA has said there’s nothing inherently incompatible with the two. The Motorola Droid Bionic was supposed to be the first major Tegra-powered smartphone with 4G LTE but it faced multiple delays and had a brain transplant before it was released.
Regardless of what happened in the past, Tegra 3 now has a major 4G LTE backer, so we’re looking forward to super-powerful handsets on blazing-fast networks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few at Mobile World Congress.
[Via NVIDIA]