ST-Ericsson, Thor modem, Thor M5730 modem
ST-Ericsson, a world leader in wireless platforms and semiconductors, announced today that a thin modem from the company‘s Thor family will power network connectivity for the new T-Mobile Sidekick 4G by Samsung. Expected to be available later this spring, the Sidekick 4G utilizes ST-Ericsson’s Thor M5720 compact and power-efficient modem capable of delivering theoretical peak download speeds of up to 21Mbps to connect to the Internet.
In February, T-Mobile launched the Samsung Galaxy S 4G, also using the Thor M5720 modem, which provides blazing-fast connectivity through T-Mobile‘s 4G network. MSNBC.com, for example, has found that the Galaxy S 4G, running on T-Mobile’s 4G network, delivered much quicker downloads than the other leading handsets tested by the web site’s journalists.
“Combining America‘s Largest 4G Network with ST-Ericsson’s modems in our latest smartphones provides a lightning-fast mobile experience for T-Mobile customers on both the Galaxy S 4G and the new T-Mobile Sidekick 4G,” said Andrew Sherrard, Senior Vice President, Product Management, T-Mobile USA.
“The Thor M5720 is the first modem in the industry to enable the development of 21 Mbps smartphones without compromising size and power consumption, resulting in an outstanding wireless experience for T-Mobile USA’s customers,” said Jrgen Lantto, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer of ST-Ericsson. “T-Mobile USA and ST-Ericsson are working together to bring even higher data rates to market including 42 and 84Mbps for future devices on Thor platforms, enabling T-Mobile to fully harness the step change in capacity and performance made possible by next generation mobile networks.”
The Thor M5720 is part of ST-Ericsson‘s Thor family of modems, which were unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. As well as offering industry-leading power consumption and a small form factor, all of ST-Ericsson’s Thor modems are equipped with communication interfaces that enable them to be integrated easily with the very latest ST-Ericsson application processors into complete device platforms.
Thor modems feature a highly-integrated radio solution that offers support for up to eight LTE/HSPA/GSM frequency bands within a very small footprint, enabling development of truly global smartphones, tablets and many other mobile broadband-enabled devices.
Available for operator testing and integration into devices from Q2 2011, the Thor M7400 modem can connect to 2G, 3G, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, HSPA+ dual carrier and LTE FDD/TDD networks. It offers theoretical peak download speeds of up to 100Mbps in LTE networks. Also available for sampling from Q2 2011, Thor M7300 can connect to HSPA+ dual carrier networks at peak download speeds of up to 84Mbps.
