4G chip mainstream manufacturers: MediaTek, Qualcomm, Broadcom

This year China officially entered the 4G first year, China Mobile launched a full-line force, mobile phone companies have begun to focus on 4G cards, and they all want to "take 4G to achieve overtaking."

In fact, not only operators and mobile phone companies, chip manufacturers have also seen the opportunity, MediaTek, Marvell and Broadcom, Haisi and other chip manufacturers began to gear up, in order to exceed the 3G chip overlord - Qualcomm. A new round of 4G chip armament competition has begun, but who can win?

When 3G/4G coexists, what is victory?

May 17th is the “World Telecommunication and Informatization Day”. The theme of this year is “Broadband for Sustainable Development”. According to the latest ITU data, by the end of 2014, Internet users are expected to reach 3 billion, of which two-thirds are in developing countries. Global mobile broadband subscriptions will also reach 2.3 billion, and 55% of these users are expected to come from developing countries.

According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, after the issuance of 4G licenses, the investment focus of enterprises has shifted to mobile communications, transmission and other fields, and the capabilities of mobile communication networks and fiber-optic broadband infrastructure have been continuously improved. The rapid spread of smartphones in China has further promoted the rapid rise of mobile broadband consumption. In 2013, China's smartphone users accounted for about 40% of total users.

The explosive development of 4G has brought a new round of competition for the three major operators. As the 4G era of the whole industry chain, the networking mode will definitely affect the industrial structure, especially the competition pattern of 4G chips.

4G just started to grow, for the user, this must be a stage of 3G/4G common use. Wei Leping, director of the China Telecom Science and Technology Commission, said that FDD and TDD are two different access methods under the unified LTE standard. China Telecom will adopt a hybrid TDD and FDD networking mode and gradually implement a converged networking. He also said that 3G and 4G LTE will coexist for a long time.

When China Unicom launched 4G, it emphasized that 3G and 4G multi-network coordinated operation is the future direction. Li Yue, president of China Mobile, once said, “In the past five years, China Mobile’s pursuit of TD-LTE (LTE TDD) industry development has always been to achieve convergence. TD-LTE and LTE FDD are an LTE, but there are two Different forms of expression. TD-LTE can make the remaining frequencies fully utilized and get more efficient organization."

At present, China Mobile's system has achieved a high degree of integration between LTE TDD and FDD modes, enabling seamless switching between two services, and has introduced five-mode ten-frequency, five-mode thirteen-frequency, and even six-module multi-frequency. Terminals, in order to promote the international development of China Mobile LTE TDD, and give consumers a better roaming experience through multi-mode terminals.

After the networking mode is determined, mobile phone companies have launched multi-mode 4G terminals this year. Whether it is Huawei, ZTE or Lenovo, multi-mode 4G has become the standard for 4G mobile phones.

Then, for the competition of 4G chips, the essence of competition is self-evident: the general standard is the basic, multi-mode support ability can not be ignored.