The sub-Rs 20,000 price segment is currently a hot-bed for Chinese smartphone vendors offering everything from Full HD displays, quad-core CPUs, 13MP camera modules to giant screen sizes – all this at a very affordable price. MediaTek has been a key player in powering all these features right from the get go and now, it’s tough to find an Android phone under Rs 20,000 that isn’t powered by a MediaTek chipset.
One thing that has been lacking however is better wireless connectivity. We’ve gotten used to not having NFC, GLONASS, dual-band Wi-Fi, etc simply because MediaTek’s chipsets don’t have these features currently. Broadcom’s renewed focus on the budget segment could potentially change what customers typically expect from smartphones. We had a chance to sit down with some of the key folks over at Broadcom, to understand their game plan on changing the perception of budget smartphones.
Changing the face of budget smartphones
For those who aren’t aware, Broadcom is primarily a wireless and broadband communications company whose bread and butter is providing solutions for everything from enterprise servers, cable modems, home networking to even mobile phones. In fact, some of the most popular consumer electronic devices like the iPod, Samsung Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note 3 and others use Broadcom’s technology for NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. The American company is now shifting its focus on baseband chips and better wireless connectivity for affordable smartphones given the boom in emerging markets like ours.
Broadcom currently has three main baseband chips that we’ll be seeing in smartphones; BCM 21663 and BCM 28145 are dual-core baseband chips and the BCM 23550 is their current flagship quad-core SoC. The latter will also debut in XOLO’s upcoming Q1000 Opus smartphone.
The company will also be playing a key role in the some of the upcoming LTE phones from Micromax, etc which are due for an announcement towards the end of the year. “Our recent acquisition of Renesas Mobile Corporation, the ex-Nokia chip company, gives us an advanced position in LTE”, said Mr. Rajiv Kapur, MD Broadcom India.
Broadcom has also tied up with key smartphone players like XOLO, Panasonic, Karbonn, Idea and Micromax to deliver either complete platform solutions (baseband, connectivity suite and navigation) or simply individual modules. This allows more flexibility as OEM’s can select a MediaTek or a Qualcomm chipset and pair it with Broadcom’s BCM4752 multi-constellation GNSS chip to deliver a better package.
Our interaction with them was centred on bringing advanced wireless and navigation features to budget phones. Things like dual-band Wi-Fi, 5G Wi-FI, NFC, Miracast, GLONASS, Bluetooth low energy (BLE) for wearable computing and their proprietary Smart On function which enables dual standby SIM cards to behave as dual active could soon be new features in the next wave of Chinese droids. At the end of our interaction, the message was pretty clear – Broadcom is more than happy playing the unsung heroes as they don’t plan on going crazy with marketing their new chipsets the way Qualcomm does. They don’t care about bringing in octa-core SoCs anytime soon either. Providing better wireless solutions in the budget segment is their primary goal and we feel they have a huge advantage here considering that’s their pedigree. The next bunch of smartphones from players like Karbonn, XOLO and Micromax are going be more about better wireless connectivity and improved location services and honestly, it’s about time too.
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