Qualcomm has just issued a press release announcing the commercial availability of their Gobi 4000 chips for 4G LTE and HSPA+ capable devices, a variant of which could very well ship in a next-generation LTE-capable iPad. In August we discovered Apple had possibly begun field testing a next-gen LTE iPads with LTE code floating around the iOS builds, and it’s likely Apple would go with Qualcomm’s chip, as almost every 3G iOS device since the Verizon iPhone has used their Gobi platform, the exception being the the AT&T iPad which uses an older Infineon chip.
The new chips, now shipping to OEMs with modules available through Novatel Wireless and Sierra Wireless, are based on Qualcomm’s MDM9600 and MDM 9200 3G/4G wireless modems, and as the company notes, have been specially designed for deployment in devices utilizing Snapdragon dual-core and quad-core processors. In addition to HSPA+, dual-carrier HSPA+, and LTE support, the Gobi 4000 platform is also backwards compatible with HSPA and EV-DO. On top of a possible variant of the chip coming to a future 4G LTE iPad, the Gobi 4000 platform will also be included in Lenovo’s ThinkPad laptops, and Dell’s Latitude E6420 laptops, in addition to other Windows and Android powered mobile devices.
Qualcomm’s senior vice president of produdct management for CDMA Technologies, Cristiano Amon, had this to say about the announcement:
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