NVIDIA Icera Modem detailed with voice-over-LTE and gaming

The folks at NVIDIA are coming in hot with not only information about the soon to be released quad-core smartphones on the block, the first on earth of course, but with LTE and their own Icera modems as well! Mobile World Congress 2012 is right around the corner, and NVIDIA is showing off how fabulous their showing is going to be at the world's largest mobile-based convention of the year – right here with Icera! In their latest update, they've detailed not only Voice over LTE with Icera, but LTE gaming as well.

Both of these technologies will be given greater detail and live demonstrations without a doubt, but what they are here is basically thus: Voice over LTE, also known as VoLTE, will be demonstrated as seamless handover of voice calls between and LTE network and a circuit-switched WCDMA 3G network and back again. This demonstration will be done using Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) and will have HD quality voice – this is also known as AMR-WB, aka Adaptive Multi-Rate-Wideband. SRVCC is described as a technology which allows voice calls to move back and forth between 4G and 3G networks, both of these networks having existed side by side already since 4G first existed.

This first step will eventually lead carriers to move voice traffic from 3G to LTE networks, this allowing in turn the 3G spectrum to be used for LTE technology so there's more than enough to go around for everybody! This technology relies on a single radio in the handset rather than a new one for each air interface. The Icera LTE modem takes care of this LTE VoIP and circuit-switched 3G trade-off on its own, this allowing smaller phone designs, lower power requirements, and better battery life in the end.

For gaming in this environment, NVIDIA will have their software defined radio (SDR) modem ready complete with all three radio technologies, 2G, 3G, and 4G, with the full range of handover capabilities that carriers will be using in the near future. In this case of course NVIDIA notes that it is the NVIDIA Icera modem that's currently used "more than any other modem to validate LTE handover test cases designed to meet the requirements set by global standards organizations."

NVIDIA will also be showing off how the Icera LTE modem utilizes their unique SDR technology, this allowing software upgradable functions for both OEMs and carriers with best-in-class power, high throughput, and an extremely small die size. Because of this also, NVIDIA is able to have the following wireless data technologies on their 2012-2013 roadmap, including the following: LTE FDD, TD-LTE, 42Mbps Dual Carrier and TD-SCDMA in addition to existing HSPA+, HSPA and 2G technologies.

Hot stuff for sweet connections! We'll be checking out NVIDIA at MWC 2012, both of which you can follow along with through the portals linked here! [NVIDIA Tegra] and [MWC 2012] – hit em now!