Qualcomm 5G 10-Gbps Aimed at PCs
Qualcomm has announced the launch of the world’s first 10-Gbps 5G modem that will be aimed at PCs and laptops. Qualcomm has been working on its Snapdragon X65 5G modem for over three years, and the company says that it is now ready for commercial deployment.
The new X60 modem will be the successor to the Snapdragon X60. Qualcomm claims that the new modem is designed to work with the mmWave spectrum bands, and will be able to support sub-6 GHz, and even Cat.21 smartphones, as well. The company claims that the new modem will be able to deliver gigabit-class speeds on networks with 200 MHz of spectrum.
The new X65 modem is powered by the company’s AI Engine, and supports the 5G NR sub-6 GHz and mmWave spectrum bands. The modem supports 4×4 MIMO, which means that it will be able to support up to 16 antennae. The modem also supports carrier aggregation, and can be used by multiple users simultaneously.
The 10-Gbps speeds will be supported on devices using the Snapdragon X55 modem, and they will be able to connect to 5G networks with a download speed of up to 5 Gbps. The maximum upload speed will be around 1.5 Gbps. The modem can also be used to connect to LTE and LTE-Advanced networks, and it supports all the technologies that are supported by the Snapdragon X50.
Qualcomm has unveiled reference designs
Qualcomm have revealled new template designs aimed at 5G-enabled M.2 cards in the hope will be used in a range of laptops, PCs, tablets and routers as well as gaming and other mobile broadband devices.
These new Qualcomm’s designs will be powered by the Snapdragon X65 and lower-specification X62 5G modem-RF systems, which are based on the most recent Release 16 3GPP standard. That combination means the template design will support spectrum aggregation with an extended-range mmWave.
Qualcomm says it will be first company with a 10Gbit/s 5G reference design, but as yest have not given data on potential real-world speeds.
The M.2 interface is a common for solid-state drives and connector cards used in the majority of computiers. Qualcomm wants this format to be used to create a “plug-and-play” framework for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This would make it more straightforward to design and build into a wide range of devices.
Hence, the latest reference designs would allow OEMs to reduce time to launch for 5G products.
Qualcomm predict products based on 3GPP Release 16 could be on the market by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Qualcomm is committed to leading the acceleration and expansion of 5G beyond smartphones
Both versions of the reference design are available now.
Separately, Qualcomm announced the availability of its latest Snapdragon mobile platform SoC, the 778G 5G , which targets premium, mid-range smartphones while offering what it claims is “leading edge” mobile gaming , accelerated AI functionality, graphics and computational photography. The platform is the successor to the 768G launched last March.
Qualcomm said several phone makers have already adopted the chip set, including Motorola, Xiaomi, OPPO, Realme and Honor.
The chipset incorporates Kyro 670, an octal-core CPU, and an Adreno 642L graphics engine. Each is said to offer a 40- percent performance boost over previous versions.
Meanwhile, the X53 5G modem provides both sub-6 5G and mmWave multi-gigabit connectivity along with Qualcomm’s FastConnect 6700 system supporting Wi-Fi6/6E at speeds of up to 2.9 GBit/s, as well as the latest Bluetooth 5.2 spec.
Snapdragon 778G also incorporates the company’s sixth-generation AI engine and Hexagon 770 processor, which are said to be capable of handling 12 trillion operations per second. That capability along with triple image signal processor provides simultaneous photo and video capture.
The device is based on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s 6nm process, offering what Qualcomm described as “incredible performance and power efficiency.”
The company said devices based on the Snapdragon 778G will be commercially available during the second quarter of 2021.
Staff writer. Jonas has an extensive background in AI, Jonas covers cloud computing, big data, and distributed computing. He is also interested in the intersection of these areas with security and privacy. As an ardent gamer reporting on the latest cross platform innovations and releases comes as second nature.
