Qualcomm to offer chips for LG smartphones

By Kim Yoo-chul

Qualcomm said Thursday that it will collaborate with LG Electronics to supply Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processors to be used in the Korean firm’s latest smartphones.

The advanced LG smartphone features 4G LTE connectivity and uses the APQ8064 solution. It is going to come out next month in Korea and globally soon afterwards.

The combination of the APQ8064 and MDM9615 modem means that the upcoming LG phone will have impressive benefits such as a longer battery life.

Qualcomm says the new S4 Pro chipset will deliver “all-day usage” and is targeted to take full advantage of upcoming multi-threaded user experiences like advanced gaming and virtual reality applications.

Unlike the MSM-branded series the latest APQ8064 platform only has application processor functions, which means a baseband chip is separately required. But this is the first time that Qualcomm has made public its quad-core AP production plan.

Aside from LG Electronics, Pantech ― the smallest local mobile carrier ― also has plans to release a 5.3-inch smartphone using Qualcomm solutions from September, according to Pantech officials. It is slightly larger than LG’s 4.7-inch one.

``The nice thing is that Qualcomm is slightly ahead of schedule on their roadmap to deliver smartphones with Snapdragon S4 quad-cores in the third quarter instead of the fourth quarter. I think Qualcomm is trying to send another message to investors that there is no problem with chip supply,’’ said a ranking LG executive.