Qualcomm's time frame for LTE silicon slips

Qualcomm's time frame for delivering its first Long Term Evolution (LTE) silicon samples for data cards is slipping, which means initial LTE data cards might not come to market until the second half of 2010.

While that's not an uncommon occurrence, it's not good news for Verizon Wireless, which has an aggressive LTE deployment schedule with the goal of launching up to 30 markets by the end of 2010.

Qualcomm had originally planned to begin sampling of its MDM multi-radio series chipsets in the second quarter of 2009, but now says it is on target to provide engineering samples in the third quarter.

ST-Ericsson, Qualcomm's main rival, is understood to be planning to ship an LTE chip in the same time frame.

For more:
- take a look at Unstrung [1]

Related articles:
Qualcomm [2] outlines plans for multimode 3G/LTE chipset
Qualcomm announces aggressive plans for LTE [3]
LTE phone unlikely [4] in 2010