Demand for mobile data continues to grow, and Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology is enabling carriers to meet that demand. LTE is the world’s fastest-growing mobile networking technology, with more than 400 commercial LTE networks launched since 2010, when deployment really started. There are now 677 operators investing in LTE in 181 countries, and more than 750 million LTE subscriptions worldwide. More than 80 operators have already upgraded networks to support LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), providing download speeds of up to 450 Mbit/s.
Semiconductor components are critical to the successful delivery of these services using LTE. There are highly integrated system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices that implement the key functions for small and macro base stations with up to 3,600 active users, and highly optimized SoC devices for smartphones, tablets and IoT/M2M applications. These flexible devices support a complex mix of frequency bands, networks, bandwidths and performance. Vendors need to invest in continuous development cycles to deliver cost-effective and power-efficient solutions that scale to support more users and greater bandwidth as carriers and users move to LTE-A services.
This report identifies and analyzes the full spectrum of vendors developing LTE and LTE-A components for base stations and user devices including IoT/M2M. It includes not only granular information on the components themselves – of interest to system OEMs, smartphone developers and service providers – but also insights into how the overall market and ecosystem is developing – of interest to a wide audience, including investors.