Qualcomm reveals new EV-DO chipset

The CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B announcement, the Qualcomm Mobile Station Modem MSM7850 chipset, is the first device announced for the high speed wireless technology, the company said, noting that the speeds will open the way for mobile TV and streaming music with simultaneous voice calling. Users of the mobile phone technology will also be able to make VoIP calls while browsing the Internet or transmitting multimedia.

"The evolution of CDMA networks from EV-DO Rev. A to EV-DO Rev. B allows network operators to remain leading-edge in their service and performance offerings without the need for any infrastructure hardware changes," said Sanjay K. Jha, chief operating officer of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. In the United States, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and Alltel have been deploying Qualcomm's Rev. A.

Scheduled to sample later this year, the MSM7850 is backward compatible with earlier EV-DO technologies. Qualcomm said software upgrades for the company's earlier Cell Site Modem CSM6800 for support of the Rev. B version will be available this week.

In another development Monday, Qualcomm unveiled single chip Rev. A systems, including the QSC6085 that's being adopted by wireless service provider China Unicom and handset manufacturer Sanyo.

Qualcomm said the QSC6085 is pin-and software-compatible with its previous QSC families, allowing device makers to use their existing hardware platforms and software applications.

The company said the QSC family is being used by device manufacturers and service providers in India by Tata Teleservices and in China by Huawei Mobile and ZTE. Qualcomm said handsets based on its QSC6010 single-chip product are increasingly being launched in emerging markets all over the world.