Qualcomm announces Snapdragon X65 modem with 10Gbps downloads

Download speeds of 10 Gbps are a little tricky, but it’s roughly the same as downloading a 4 GB 66 GB Blu-ray in just under a minute. Those insane speeds are exactly what Qualcomm has to offer with its latest Snapdragon X65 5G modem. Of course, the speed won’t be quite as fast in the real world, but the chipset should have faster and more stable 5G connections than the current 7Gbps modems on the market.

These speeds are made possible by the fact that this will be the first Qualcomm modem to be compliant with the 5G Release 16 specification. The important thing is that this is an upgradeable platform that can support new functionality through software.

The modem was developed for a tiny 4 nm manufacturing process (current smartphone SoCs are at 5 nm) and supports mmWave sub6 aggregation (both FDD and TDD) with up to 10 100 MHz carriers in the mmWave spectrum . There is also DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing), 2 × 2 MIMO mmWave and 4 × 4 MIMO below 6 GHz, as well as new support for n259, n70 and n53 mmWave bands.

In short, the Snapdragon X65 modem supports more bands and increases the number of carriers running concurrently to achieve the peak performance of 10Gbps. Qualcomm’s latest modem also implements new power saving features, including PowerSave 2.0, which builds on 3GPP Release 16 Connected-Mode Wake-Up Signal technology, 7th generation Envelope Tracking and AI-Enhanced Signal Boost technologies. These should help battery-powered devices last longer when downloading at top speeds. As an added bonus, the chip also offers Multi-SIM 5G support.

See also: MediaTek Announces Helio M80: The First mmWave Modem

In order to achieve download speeds of 10 Gbit / s and improved energy efficiency, the modem and radio front-end components must work closely together. The X65 modem includes a new Qualcomm 545 mmWave antenna module. It fits in the same area as the previous generation module that is currently shipping in devices. At the very least, devices don’t have to get thicker to support these new technologies.

The Snapdragon X65 modem is designed for smartphone, tablet, PC and mobile hotspot devices. In addition to use in products with fixed wireless access, industrial IoT and private 5G networks. We have only just started bringing our first smartphones to market with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X60 modem. We therefore expect the X65 modem to appear in a next-generation Snapdragon flagship processor designed to power smartphones and other devices in early 2022.