Qualcomm releases second generation 5g baseband snapdragon x55
Qualcomm has announced next year's 5g chip: meet Xiaolong x55
As partners start talking about X50 solutions, Qualcomm is already promoting x55
Two months ago, Qualcomm hosted the Xiaolong technology summit in Hawaii. These are the two days when the company talks about how Xiaolong X50 modem will usher in the era of 5g mmwave. This year is all the same. Although there is still no single product available for sale for X50 modem, Qualcomm is already talking about next year's 5g solution
Today, Qualcomm announced its & ldquo; The second generation 5g Solution & rdquo; Snapdragon x55 5g modem. Used with the new modem is a new 5g mmwave RF antenna called qtm525, which eliminates the qtm052 paired with the X50 modem. Overall, it is a faster, smaller, and more compatible version of Qualcomm's 5g chip solution. After Qualcomm's large-scale technology exhibition, we tore down Qualcomm's first generation 5g components, although these & ldquo; Second generation & rdquo; Components do not really solve the problems raised in this article, but they are a step in the right direction
Qualcomm said that these new chips will not be launched until the end of 2019. This means that the X50 and qtm052 will still charge and absorb the battery for most of 2019. With the mobile world conference at the end of February, some OEMs will announce 5g hardware this week and next week, and those devices should run the previously announced X50 hardware. X55 is more like & ldquo; Next year's 5g Hardware & rdquo;, But Qualcomm likes to talk about these things a year in advance
Faster, smaller, but still equally complex
5g will make smartphone design more complex. Today, 4G LTE mobile phones adopt a single-chip design, and SOC and modem are integrated in one silicon chip. 5g requires SOC, an additional 5g modem, and several RF antenna modules built into the side of the phone. Single chip solutions are smaller, colder, cheaper, and use less battery power, so all these multi-chip 5g devices will have to compromise in these aspects. Qualcomm's second-generation 5g package is still part of the same pile of multi chips, but the chip itself should be smaller
There are many problems in the range and penetration of 5g mmwave connection, and one of the problems that the industry is trying to solve is to paste multiple RF antenna modules on the side of the equipment. Many of Qualcomm's graphics display devices have four antenna modules (one on each side of the device). The new qtm525 antenna should contribute to the mobile phone design in 2020 because it is smaller than this year's qtm052. Qualcomm did not give the exact size of each module, but it said it took a lot of time & ldquo; Reduce the height of the module to support 5g smartphone design thicker than 8mm& rdquo; Due to the size picture next to a penny, we know that the older qtm052 module is about 5mm high. I haven't seen anything that allows us to figure out the height of this new qtm525 module
When it comes to size improvement, Xiaolong x55 should save more space. Xiaolong X50 is manufactured by 10nm manufacturing process, but x55 is being upgraded to 7Nm process. Smaller transistors should mean less use, less heat, and - if the design is the same - smaller chip size. But the design is different
For this year's X50 5g chip package, the OEM will use Xiaolong 855 SOC with integrated 4G LTE modem and pair it with X50 mmwave modem, which is located on a separate chip. However, the x55 modem is compatible with 5g mmwave and 4G LTE, and can support all functions from 2G to 5g. Spectrum sharing is also supported, which allows mmwave and LTE to coexist on the same frequency. The new modem has more global 5g compatibility and now covers 26ghz, 28ghz and 39ghz mmwave spectrum. X50 does not support 26ghz
5g is a promise of really fast data access (if you can get it), and x55 has been upgraded to a higher level. LTE modem is Xiaolong 855 SOC, which can reach the theoretical maximum speed of 2gbps. This year's Xiaolong X50 5g modem can theoretically reduce 5Gbps, while this new x55 5g modem can technically reach 7gbps. X55 can only realize 6gbps through mmwave, and the additional 1Gbps comes from LTE below 6GHz
It is unclear how this 4G / 5G modem will be used in the device. The modem still needs to be paired with some kind of SOC. Does this mean that you have an LTE modem on the SOC and a second LTE modem on the chip? Will Qualcomm start manufacturing SOC without LTE and rely entirely on this chip for cellular connection? What we really want to see is the on-board 5g SOC, just like today's LTE mobile phones have a single-chip modem + SOC combination. We don't know anything about Xiaolong's 2020 SOC lineup, so many possibilities are still pending.