Qualcomm announces “first 5G Advanced-ready modem-RF system”
Claimed to be the first modem to antenna system to support 5G Advanced, Snapdragon X75 will push the boundaries of connectivity including coverage, latency, power efficiency and mobility, said Qualcomm. Target applications are smartphones, mobile broadband, automotive, compute, industrial IoT, fixed wireless access and 5G private networks.
Snapdragon X75 has a dedicated hardware tensor accelerator, Qualcomm 5G AI processor Gen 2, enabling over 2.5 times better AI performance compared to Gen 1. It also introduces Qualcomm 5G AI Suite Gen 2 with AI-powered optimisations to achieve better speeds, coverage, mobility, link robustness and location accuracy. The 5G AI suite’s AI-based capabilities include what is believed to be the first sensor-assisted mmWave beam management and AI-enhanced GNSS Location Gen 2 to optimise 5G performance.
The Snapdragon X75 is powered by a new modem-to-antenna upgradeable architecture and is scalable. In addition to the 10-carrier aggregation for mmWave, there is 5x downlink carrier aggregation and FDD uplink MIMO for sub-6GHz bands, which optimise spectrum aggregation and capacity.
Converged transceiver for mmWave and sub-6GHz paired with the new Qualcomm QTM565 mmWave antenna modules reduce cost, board complexity, hardware footprint and power consumption, said the company.
There is also the company’s 5G PowerSave Gen 4 and RF Power Efficiency suite for extended battery life.
The modem to antenna system has support for DSDA Gen 2, enabling 5G/4G Dual Data on two SIM cards simultaneously. For fast, reliable, long range uploads, there is the Smart Transmit Gen 4 now includes support for Snapdragon Satellite.
“5G Advanced will take connectivity to a whole new level, fuelling the new reality of the connected intelligent edge,” said Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager, cellular modems and infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies. He added the Snapdragon X75 Modem-RF system with “innovations such as hardware accelerated AI and the support for upcoming 5G Advanced capabilities, . . . unlock a whole new level of 5G performance and a new phase in cellular communications.”
Qualcomm has also announced the Snapdragon X72 5G modem-RF system (pictured). It is optimised for mainstream adoption of mobile broadband applications, supporting multi-Gigabit download and upload speeds.
Snapdragon X75 is currently sampling, with commercial devices expected to launch by the second half of 2023.
