In Pictures: What to expect from the world’s biggest mobile show – MWC 2013

New NVIDIA CPU integrates LTE for smartphones

The chipmaker announced a new Tegra CPU aimed at low-power smartphones and embedded devices: the Tegra 4i chip, with an integrated LTE modem, the i500. It’s been described as a “cut-down” variant of the Tegra 4 announced in January. The 4i is different because it uses the less powerful ARM Cortex A9 cores (instead of A15) to reduce power consumption and die size; and because it incorporate NVIDIA’s Icera i500 LTE/HSPA+ baseband processor onto the same die. The result, as shown, is a dramatically smaller component that needs less power. The new chip was co-developed with ARM, according to an NVIDIA executive, representing “not a simple rev of [the] A9, but a pretty heavy improvement."