Ericsson’s joint venture with STMicro, which saw its modem chip business placed into ST-Ericsson, may have been a disaster, but modems remain important to the Swedish giant. There was speculation, when the JV was dissolved, that the firm would give up on this activity, but it brought modems back inhouse, and recently appointed a new head for the unit.
Developing advanced modems is important to Ericsson to keep it at the cutting edge of the most fundamental technology in its wireless world. Some of its R&D feeds into its infrastructure and some into its own chips and modules for devices. The latter are not a major revenue generator by Ericsson standards, but ‘ as Qualcomm well knows ‘ modems are vital for involvement in operator trials and for assembling essential IPR in 3GPP standards.
This week, Ericsson announced that China Mobile had approved its new M7450 five-mode modem chipset, which covers both LTE modes (TDD and FDD) plus W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA and GSM. This is important to the largest Chinese cellco to support devices that work across all three of its networks ‘ easing the migration to 4G ‘ and also allow roaming with the mainstream FDD standards.
The Swedish vendor says the M7450 is the smallest modem supporting carrier aggregation (CA) and usable in global markets. It includes Single RF Chip CA, VoLTE and IMS. It will appear in commercial devices in the second half of this year and is also undergoing certification tests with operators in North America, Europe and Asia.
The new head of the modems business is Robert Puskaric, previously head of northern Europe and central Asia. He brings a heavyweight presence to the division, indicating Ericsson’s determination to expand it now it is back with the mother ship. CEO Hans Vestberg said in a statement: “Robert brings relevant experience and strong business acumen as the modems business enters a new and exciting phase. We now have one of the industry’s most advanced LTE thin modems and are trialing with the first customers.”
Puskaric said: ‘Modems will be an important part of realizing our vision of a Networked Society where anything that benefits from being connected will be connected.’ That indicates the potential which Ericsson sees in the internet of things. It is heavily focused on thin LTE modems now, targeting smartphones but also modules and embedded devices.