India's First 4G-Enabled Feature Phone Uses Spreadtrum LTE SoC Platform

The smartphone segment in developed countries has reached near 100 percent saturation points, which present a formidable challenge for OEMs in these markets. However, in developing countries, the adoption rate is very low, in most cases reaching about one fourth or around 25-30 percent of the population. According to the latest report from Counterpoint, this low-rate makes India one of the fastest growing markets for smartphones, with a rate of 23 percent YoY. In order to address this market, OEMs in India have to manufacture phones that are affordable for the local population, while still delivering the features consumers need. The new Lava Connect M1, India's first 4G-enabled feature phone, uses the Spreadtrum Communications (News - Alert)' SC9820LTE SoC platform to deliver an affordable device.

Spreadtrum Communications is a fabless semiconductor company that develops integrated, power-efficient chipsets with customizable software and reference designs in a complete turnkey platform. For OEMs in developing markets, the chipset the company creates can be applied for smartphones and feature phones with 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards.

“SC9820 is a breakthrough product by Spreadtrum. The launch of Lava Connect M1 will create possibilities for features phones users in India and will be a milestone in making India, a DIGITAL INDIA. We are looking forward to seeing Spreadtrum SC9820 power more feature phone users all over the world and thus enable them to access the internet and consume digital content at an affordable price,” said Dr. Leo Li, Chairman and CEO of Spreadtrum

The SC9820LTE SoC platform gives OEMs the ability to introduce new devices with full features to markets faster to address the needs of developing countries, such as India. This SOC is the world's first LTE feature phone chipset, integrating the 1.2GHz dual-core ARM (News - Alert) Cortex-A7 processor, ARM Mali-400 MP1 GPU for 3D graphics acceleration and supports TDD-LTE, FDD-LTE, TD-SCDMA and GSM modes.

Additional hardware support includes up to 5MP rear/front camera, 720P video play, FWVGA screen and VoLTE HD video service.

Gaurav Nigam, Head - Product, Lava International, said, “The integration of LTE (News - Alert) SoC platform, SC9820 with Lava's mobile technology is a strategic move which will empower our consumers in availing the latest technology by helping them transition from 2G & 3G to 4G networks at an affordable price.”

The configuration for the Lava Connect M1 will have the Spreadtrum's 28nm 1.2GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 LTE SC9820platform, a 512 MB RAM/4GB ROM storage, a MicroSD slot up to 32GB, VoLTE, dual SIM function and it comes pre-installed with Facebook (News - Alert) Lite.

The Lava Connect M1 was launched in the Indian market in February 2017.