Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM) is playing its strategy for Long Term Evolution (LTE) close to its chest, even as it starts to hire engineers to develop the proto-4G silicon.

Unstrung asked the company where it is with LTE on Tuesday. "Our mobile group is working on several 3G and 4G technologies," a company spokesperson told us.

"As a rule, we do not announce new developments until they reach the product stage. At this point, we are not ready to discuss LTE publicly."

The company is, however, currently advertising for a principal systems engineer for help "developing solutions supporting the next generation of 3G and 4G high-speed mobile technologies." The engineer would work on "the development of new technology such as LTE" as well as advanced 3G systems. (See 4G or Not 4G?)

So, clearly, it is cooking something up. "Broadcom obviously has to be working on an LTE strategy -- they're just not telling anyone about it yet," says Joseph Byrne, analyst at The Linley Group .

Byrne suspects that part of the reason that Broadcom isn't talking about LTE yet is because it is still hard at work delivering on a 3G contract with Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and an EDGE deal for Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Korea: SEC). "Nokia is just now starting to ship," he notes. (See Did Qualcomm Really Win?)

Broadcom's major rival in this space, Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM), meanwhile, said recently that it will deliver its first engineering samples of LTE silicon intended for data cards in the third quarter of this year. (See Qualcomm LTE Slip Could Mean Data Card Delays .) — Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung