Intel Release 5G Modem XMM8060 and 4G Modem XMM7660

With the development of wireless networks, 5G network is approaching. It’s said 5G networks will be available. The wireless industry leaders such as Qualcomm and Intel are planning the new products to meet the network upgrade. Last month, Qualcomm Inc. has announced that they have successfully trialed a 5G data connection on their X50 5G modem. Qualcomm says during their trial they were able to successfully establish a 5G data connection on the X50 modem using 28GHz mmWave frequency band, with download speeds reaching over a gigabit per second.

Intel is also following the trend for 5G network. A couple of days ago, Intel also announced the Intel XMM 8000 series, which is its first family of 5G new radio (5G NR) multi-mode commercial modems. The XMM8060 is the first modem of the XMM 8000 series. Intel also announced its latest LTE modem, the Intel XMM7660, which will be made available in 2019.

 

Intel XMM8060 is the company’s first commercial 5G modem as a competitor to Qualcomm X50 5G modem. As the typical feature, the Intel XMM8060 is also multi-mode supporting full 5G non-standalone and standalone NR, as well as various 2G, 3G and 4G legacy modes. Thus enabling devices to work in different locations, including large cities with 5G standalone NR (this may be a distant future) as well as rural areas that have 2G or 3G networks. This is important as 5G availability will not be available everywhere all at once, and it will take years for its roll-out to complete, just like how it took years for 4G LTE to be adopted throughout the globe. The XMM8060 is expected to be adopted in customer devices since mid-2019 at earliest. As part of the announcement, the company reiterated its plans to offer a top-to-bottom XMM 8000 family of 5G modems for various applications, including smartphones, PCs, buildings and vehicles.

Intel has kept on developing LTE modems as well. With the Intel XMM8060, the XMM7660 4G LTE Modem was also presented as its second-generation Gigabit LTE modem capable of up to Cat 19 (1.6Gbps) downlink connections. It features MIMO, carrier aggregation, 256QAM and a broad range of band support.  Intel expects commercial devices to adopt the XMM 7660 in 2019.

 

Intel says the series will enable a range of devices from PCs and phones to vehicles and fixed wireless consumer premise equipment to connect to 5G networks. And we will see when 5G coming.

Huawei Presents HiSilicon Kirin 970 LTE Cat18 Chipset

Huawei presented a new chipset for smartphones at the IFA with the HiSilicon Kirin 970. The Kirin 970 includes a processor, a graphics unit and a mobile radio modem. Especially in the modem, there is some progress compared to the predecessor – the Kirin 960. The Kirin 970 LTE Cat18 supports up to 1.2 GBit/s in the download. In addition, the dual SIM operation supports LTE on both SIM cards at the same time. The Kirin 970 chipset will be used in the Huawei Mate 10 smartphone, which will be presented in mid-October in Munich.

Modern LTE modem

The HiSilicon Kirin 970 is next to the first modem Qualcomm Snapdragon X20, which supports LTE category 18 of the downlink . Thus, speeds of up to 1.2 gigabits per second are possible in a correspondingly developed mobile radio network.

To achieve such high speeds, different 4.5G/LTE Advanced Pro technologies are combined. The Kirin 970 supports, for example, the 4 × 4 MIMO antenna technology and the 256QAM modulation technology. Furthermore, a frequency spectrum of up to 100 MHz can be bundled thanks to the 5CC CA (= five-factor carrier aggregation ).

There is also news about Dual SIM. So far, no smartphone was able to use both SIM slots on LTE at the same time. One of the two cards was therefore always limited to 2G / 3G usage, which is particularly annoying if only an LTE network is available. The Kirin 970 can now also run parallel in the LTE network on both SIM cards, so you can, for example, use the first SIM card to surf via LTE and use the VoLTE in the LTE network via the second card.

Processor, graphics and AI

The HiSilicon Kirin 970 is produced in the 10nm process and is to enable a better battery life than the previous model. An octa-core CPU and a 12-core GPU are integrated in addition to the described modem. The chipset should be particularly suitable for artificial intelligence applications (AI) and be faster and 50x more efficient than a classic quad-core CPU without a AI component through a combination of on-device AI and Cloud AI 25x.

Global chip giant fighting Chinese 4G LTE market in MWC

2014 Mobile World Congress (Mobile World Congress, hereinafter referred to as the MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, the world’s leading mobile products manufacturers have come up with special skill. However, in addition to increasing media exposure outside of their major technology, mobile chip giant also did not forget to take the opportunity to compete for Chinese 4G mobile network market.

Because including China Mobile, the Chinese mobile operators are racing to upgrade to 4G LTE mobile network. The smart phones main component manufacturers Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek, Marvell and Broadcom, compete for the world’s largest mobile market on the occasion of MWC.

 

Chinese mobile operator’s evolution of LTE technology allows Intel and other chip makers saw a great opportunity to push top LTE chip maker Qualcomm off the altar. The MWC Conference will undoubtedly become a crucial battleground. There are 70 Chinese companies exhibiting MWC Assembly last year, and this year the figure further increased to 99. Therefore, MWC Assembly provides the perfect stage for the global mobile chip manufacturers to showcase their best products.

Intel and Qualcomm chip manufacturers will show the first new microchip-based LTE technology products in Barcelona, many of these chip consumes less power, but the price is also lower than the previous cutting-edge products. This makes them ideal chip products for low-end smartphones in China and other emerging markets.

 

Qualcomm even designed for MWC Assembly developed a Chinese version of the smart phone applications, and posted in the booth scene identification with Chinese translation. Cristiano, executive vice president of Qualcomm • Amon (Cristiano Amon) said: “We will show a lot of products designed to attract Chinese enterprises and products on LTE technology Qualcomm LTE technology and aware of emerging market consumers migrate to smart phones. the hidden huge opportunity. ”

LTE chip demand surge

With the advantage of early technology, Qualcomm has been the main producer for LTE smartphone chip market in the past four years. And more and more countries have begun to adopt LTE network technology which also enables LTE chip demand surge.

MediaTek chief marketing officer Johan Lodenius, said: “Qualcomm is very good at developing LTE technology chips, however, almost all of the world’s mobile operators are looking for an alternative vendor of LTE chips in our favor. They don’t want to outsource to individual Qualcomm. ”

 

Intel, MediaTek, Broadcom and Qualcomm’s other competitors are invariably hyping their new exhibition site in MWC Barcelona, LTE chip products coming soon, however, very few of which can be launched in a variety of smart phones applications this week.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, chip maker Marvell has achieved some success; it has been applied in LTE accessories designed for the Chinese market on the development of several upcoming low-power smart phones.

Adjustment chip strategy

On Monday, Intel announced a new LTE chip, and is working with major mobile operators to start testing the chip. Intel marketing director Julie • Corpus Noel said the new LTE chip will be allocated to in the production of mobile phones in late 2014. She said: “LTE chip on the market on how to apply to the overwhelming rumors on the phone and we’ve effectively launched its own chips for our products that we have made significant improvements …”

Like other chip makers, Intel has also restructured the chip strategy, started paying more for the price below $ 300 smart phone product development, while reducing the degree of concern for the high-end smart phone accessories.

According to the UK technology market research, firm ARM Holdings published statistics show that as of 2018, the global high-end smart phone shipments are expected the annual growth rate of just under 4%; while mid-range and entry-level smartphone shipments are expected to annual growth rate were as high as 14% and 17%.

Qualcomm announced the launch of two mobile chips using LTE technology this week, and consumer markets target at China. A Qualcomm spokeswoman said, the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturers will launch 10 or more devices with Qualcomm’s new chip.

Even Microsoft is also expanding its influence in the Chinese mobile phone market. Microsoft announced the launch of new reference design projects, designed to facilitate the rapid introduction of mobile phone manufacturers using Qualcomm chips Windows smartphones.

 

Huawei ME909 4G LTE LGA Wireless Module

Huawei ME909 is an LTE radio module for the exchange of high data rates in 4G networks and is one model of Huawei’s LGA product family. All modules of the product family are pin and software compatible.

The radio module Huawei ME909 is ready for use in LTE networks. Huawei has its LGA product family expanded to include the first LTE module: ME909 for M2M applications. The version for the European market supports seven LTE frequency bands. The module also features quad-band HSPA+/HSPA/UMTS and quad-band GPRS/GSM/EDGE, making it usable worldwide. With CDC-ECM offering, Huawei also makes the only LTE module on the market to have a virtual Ethernet port. The design is to simplify the integration into existing software platforms and reduce the load on the processor. Huawei ME909 also supports perspective GPS, A-GPS, Glonass and GPS Extra, as the announcement.

With data rates in LTE network of up to 100 Mbit/s, Huawei ME909 is especially for applications with high data throughput, such as video conferences, home gateway, routers or hotspot devices. It is also available with Mini-PCIE interface. Versions for the Japanese and the U.S. market are planned.

According to Huawei, all modules from the respective LGA product families “industrial grade” or “automotive grade” are pin and software compatible. This enables customers to develop M2M solutions on a single hardware platform. This reduces the effort and creates flexibility and sustainability.