Qualcomm Announced Its First 5G Modem Called Snapdragon X50

This news is already a few days old but here it is in any case: Qualcomm introduced its first 5G modem, called Snapdragon X50 at its 4G/5G Summit. Here are some details about the modem:

• Engineered to support download speeds of up to 5Gbps
• Utilizes very wide bandwidths available in the 28GHz  millimeter wave band combined with advanced signal processing technologies
• mmWave is not confined to fixed wireless applications. The modem relies on multi-element antenna arrays designed to work together intelligently using beamforming and beam tracking, which extend mmWave’s mobility and reach to non-line-of-sight scenarios. X50 can direct the energy of the mmWave beam, bouncing off obstacles to reach the mmWave 5G small cell with which it is communicating
• Qualcomm also announced, together with Telstra, Ericsson, and Netgear, the first commercial Gigabit Class LTE device and network. The company believes that Gigabit Class LTE will be coexisting and interwork with 5G deployments. X50 can be paired with a Snapdragon processor with an integrated Gigabit Class LTE modem. The 4G/5G multi-mode platform can provide dual-connectivity so that a mobile device can connect simultaneously over both generations of technology (similar to 3G/4G multi-mode devices which were able to fall back to 3G when 4G coverage was not available).
• Qualcomm expects X50 to start sampling in the second half of 2017 and the first products integrating it are expected to surface throughout 2018

It is certainly good news for 5G that we can expect first 5G devices appearing to the market in 2018.

The 5G New Radio (NR) standardization is still work-in-progress so Qualcomm will have work to do to add full support for it to X50.