In an interesting move, NVidia just bought a little-known company named Icera. Icera is one of those companies you never hear of, but owns some of the more popular chipsets for 2G, 3G, and 4G data communications. For a sizable layout of $367 Million in cash, NVidia now has their own communications chip company.
Founded in 2002 and based in Bristol, England, Icera produces multi-protocol, ultra-low power wireless baseband processors with RF components, capable of working on 2G, 3G and 4G networks that use different protocols, such as HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE. “Because the baseband is software-based, manufacturers can develop multiple products from a common platform, reduce development costs, accelerate time to market and secure a route to support future baseband standards,” Nvidia said.
The goal is to integrate this chipset into the Tegra platform, and make it an even more attractive offering to developers. A uniform platform with GPU, CPU, and now Wireless Communications.
