Broadcom SoCs

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It seems there will be new low-cost SoCs from Broadcom with integrated LTE:

Delivers 150Mbps Category 4 speeds on FDD-LTE and TD-LTE networks, 42Mbps 3G HSPA+ and 2G
BCM2095 LTE RF transceiver enables FDD and TD LTE/3G/2G band support for worldwide roaming
dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth smart, GPS and near field communication (NFC)
VoLTE and HD voice support
Pre-integrated with the Android KitKat operating system
HD display, imaging and graphics
Reduces LTE modem power consumption by up to 30 percent for extended hours of use
Utilizes Broadcom’s pin-to-pin compatible dual-core M320 or upcoming quad-core M340 LTE SoC
Design reuse between dual-core and quad-core basebands for developing multiple devices with the same platform design to cut the cost
Certification for Category 4 (Cat 4) speeds in FDD-LTE and TD-LTE modes with seamless worldwide roaming capabilities.

http://www.fonearena.com/blog/95603...e-chips-aimed-at-sub-300-lte-smartphones.html

Apparently, the new SoCs have Cortex A9 CPUs and PowerVR 5XT GPUs.
I guess this means the end of Videocore GPUs?
 
That looks like a Renesas SoC to me - no idea what their future roadmap looks like.
 
Yes, it is the Renesas chip, dual core now, quad core coming later in the year.

I guess Qualcomm will finally have some LTE competition, from Renesas as well as mediatek, both at low end and medium end.
 
Well, every website has been spinning this as a Broadcomm SoC.. The article says the M320 was shown in CES 2014 as a Broadcom SoC and anandtech did it too:

wWGzlo9.jpg


I just saw this in anandtech:
At CES 2014, Broadcom showed off its M320 SoC which was based on the Renesas SoC platform.

Is Broadcom reselling Renesas chips as their own? Again, does this mean they terminated their GPU and SoC development?
 
Well, every website has been spinning this as a Broadcomm SoC.. The article says the M320 was shown in CES 2014 as a Broadcom SoC and anandtech did it too:

wWGzlo9.jpg


I just saw this in anandtech:


Is Broadcom reselling Renesas chips as their own? Again, does this mean they terminated their GPU and SoC development?

They are broadcom chips.

Broadcom bought up the Renesas smartphone soc segment, to accelerate their time to market for LTE solutions.
http://www.broadcom.com/press/release.php?id=s788513

"Broadcom is gaining a dual-core LTE SoC that is ready for volume production and is carrier-validated by leading global operators in North America, Japan and Europe"

Pretty sure this broadcom chip was previously known as this Renesas chip
http://renesasmobile.com/share/news-events/news/2012/product-renesas-mobile-MP5232.pdf

The quad-core that they are bringing out later this year, might be something else, or it may be this renesas chip
http://renesasmobile.com/share/products/datasheets/renesasmobile-datasheet-mp6530.pdf
 
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I missed/forgot the purchase part.

But what does this mean for Broadcom's in-house SoC and GPU development?
Renesas used graphics IP from Imagination, but Broadcom has their own GPU line, the Videocore.

I thought the Videocore GPUs were interesting because the last two generations had the option for including dedicated memory for the GPU, and the overall performance was actually very competitive for their price range.
 
IMG said in their half-year results published in December, that broadcom was a new licensee in that period.

"Among the key agreements, there were license deals with several new partners in new areas including Broadcom, GUC, Pluschip and Toshiba"

It's not entirely clear to me if that was a requirement/a result of buying the renesas unit, or whether it suggests they are using PowerVr in new chips NOT derived from the Renesas purchase.

I suggest it is initially for implementation/support of the Renesas stuff, with IMG keen to use the opportunity to show the advantages of their tech, with a view to a "real" license.
 
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Broadcom is out of the handheld business:

http://investor.broadcom.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=861298

We recently made the difficult, but prudent decision to wind down our cellular baseband business and focus on the Broadband, Connectivity and Infrastructure markets.

2500 layoffs with the process.
I guess the Videocore line of GPUs really is gone now.

I wonder what this will mean for future Raspberry Pi products. I think they would avoid at all costs to radically change GPIO features/mapping and GPU architecture (even less now that Broadcom decided to completely expose the Videocore IV GPU for the open source community). Maybe Broadcom will still sell them those older dual-Cortex A9 SoCs?

Also, their SoCs are gone from their anemic webpage:
http://www.broadcom.com/products/Cellular/3G-Baseband-Processors/

What are they going to do with the M320 and M340? Nothing, I presume?
 
Unfortunately the ULP mobile SoC market is continiously shrinking. I know that only the strong survice, but it's a sad reality nonetheless :cry:
 
We recently made the difficult, but prudent decision to wind down our cellular baseband business and focus on the Broadband, Connectivity and Infrastructure markets.
What kind of business are they getting out of? I do not quite get it....
What I don't get is how that one and only sentence that I quoted wasn't specific enough..


Unfortunately the ULP mobile SoC market is continiously shrinking. I know that only the strong survice, but it's a sad reality nonetheless :cry:

Actually, I get the feeling that we're just changing "main" players.
Texas, Broadcom and ST-Ericsson are out but the last few years have seen the rise of Mediatek, Hisilicon and Allwinner.
 
Actually, I get the feeling that we're just changing "main" players.
Texas, Broadcom and ST-Ericsson are out but the last few years have seen the rise of Mediatek, Hisilicon and Allwinner.

Yes and no. Allwinner has after Apple the second best tablet SoC sales (in units) worldwide; that shouldn't mean though that Rockchip, Mediatek & Intel and the likes aren't constantly increasing their efforts to take a bigger bite of Allwinner's market share:

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/35322-allwinner-to-launch-64-bit-arm-socs-this-year

I'd love to stand corrected but Mediatek is projecting for this fiscal year over 330Mio units (for both tablets and smartphones). All it means though is that it scaled up from roughly 240Mio units last fiscal year, meaning that a sizeable force in the market just got bigger, but that shouldn't mean though that they're necessarily absorbing directly volumes from players that leave or have left the market.
 
As far as I'm aware, Samsung is still trying to sell to everyone else, they're just not very successful at it. Maybe someone can enlighten me whether that's still true?
 
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