Samsung's multimode modem chip wins award

LTE multimode modem chip developed by Samsung Electronics received ‘IR52 Jang Yeong-Sil Award’ for the 34th week in 2015.

The smartphone modem market has long been dominated by US Qualcomm with LTE-3G multimode modem. Korean smartphone manufacturers had to pay a royalty to the US company for the sale of every smartphone.

For the first time in the industry, Samsung Electronics successfully commercialized an LTE-A modem that supports a speed of up to 450Mbps after continuous R&D efforts. The modem can be applied to 2G and 3G phones, as well as LTE phones, while a multiple of frequency can be used with one single modem. Kim Min-koo, an executive director at Samsung Electronics, said one of 2G, 3G and LTE is used for communication worldwide, so the latest modem is very useful as it can be available to any type.

Samsung Electronics began efforts to develop the multimode modem chip in June 2013. It spent about 70 billion won on R&D until early this year. The modem chip is applied to Samsung Electronics’ key smartphones, including the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy Edge.

“The new modem consumes 20 percent less power and the chip size was successfully optimized,” Kim said.

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