[Rumor] Android Ice Cream Sandwich May be Built Around TI OMAP 4

[dgstorm]

There is rumor in the industry that Google may be looking toward Texas Instruments for developing the next Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. Apparently, even though NVIDIA has seen great success with the Tegra 2, there are still some problems with their chipsets that have made Google rethink their future partnerships. In fact, there is speculation in the industry that many of the problems with 4G networks are caused by NVIDIA's Tegra 2 chip.

The source of this story also praised Texas Instruments for being timely and reliable. The source further commented that,

Nvidia seems to have run out of steam, lacks engineers and has come up against a bit of an innovation wall.

From what can be gleaned from the source, there has not been any kind of "falling out" between NVIDIA and Google, but Google is simply keeping their options open and going with the best competitor at the time. The same source further speculated that Google is considering Texas Instruments for the next iteration of Android after Ice Cream Sandwich, and that it will be called "Jello."

There may be some teeth to this rumor. Word on the street is that the "new" Motorola Droid Bionic has switched to the TI OMAP 4 CPU. Interesting... we will keep a close watch for any info that may corroborate these rumors.

Source: SlashGear and RCRWireless Part 1 & Part 2

[furbearingmammal]

That would certainly explain the Bionic delays. Maybe it WILL kick the Atrix in the fork.

[WERA689]

Given the problems that current VZW phones have had with handoffs between 3G and LTE, this move may have more to do with correcting that issue than anything else. Just something to consider.

[furbearingmammal]

Yeah, you'd think THAT would be a simple fix. Of course, at the rate LTE eats battery, who knows what the real delay for the big B is.

[Dorian]

From what I understand, from several people I've talked to, is that since Tegra 2 has no inbuilt radio solutions or even options... it's up to the OEM to pair Tegra 2 with whatever radio combination they see fit to implement. The thing about that is that there is a LOT more issues for OEM's if they have to do the debug with different radio stacks and baseband configurations. Having an inbuilt solution, that plays nice with all the other hardware features, is something Tegra 2 is struggling with. IMO, that's the reason for the delay. Plus, having to debug all that costs a TON of money. Probably more than Motorola was prepared to lay out. Since NVIDIA has now bought Icera, they will have baseband solutions available for OEM's starting with Kal-El.

Motorola moving their LTE/CDMA based phone to the OMAP platform is logical to me.... and it really shows how big the issue is when Google starts avoiding a certain chipset.