Samsung takes aim at Huawei with its latest 5G chips
David Imel / Android Authority
TL; DR
- Samsung has unveiled 5G chips that could boost Huawei’s business.
- The 5G modem offers more bandwidth and cuts performance in half.
- Expect them to come to carriers and wireless networks all over the world.
Samsung is taking advantage of the ban on Huawei products by launching 5G technology that directly fills the void. The company unveiled a trio of 5G chips ahead of the 2021 Mobile World Congress that (along with an antenna) could boost the business that Huawei had to leave behind.
For most people, a new 5G modem is likely to have the biggest impact. Samsung has presented a second generation 5G modem system-on-chip that doubles the capacity of an upcoming baseband chip and uses only half as much power as the previous model. Expect it to be the heart of a third generation 5G Compact Macro box that promises higher bandwidth (a 400MHz band), more frequency, and lower power consumption.
Samsung is also supplying a new generation millimeter wave radio frequency (RFIC) integrated circuit with much smaller antennas and reduced power consumption, while another is connecting a digital / analog front end to an RFIC to double the bandwidth while shrinking the size. An all-encompassing one antenna radio, on the other hand, is both more compact and easier to implement in networks.
Continue reading: The best 5G phones you can buy
The tech giant also teased its 6G plans. Samsung has explored the world beyond 5G by looking into very high frequency terahertz WiFi and testing a 140 GHz radio link. The company envisions 6G supporting mixed reality, high fidelity holograms, and even digital replicas of real technology. We wouldn’t expect 6G to hit the market anytime soon when 5G is barely available, but the tease shows where Samsung is headed.
This is a back-end device that you probably won’t see firsthand. However, the Samsung hardware could lead to more and faster 5G coverage for your phones and other mobile devices. It’s also bad news for Huawei as it continues to participate in everything from cellular networks to the phones themselves – Samsung could effectively fill in Huawei’s footsteps by becoming a true wireless powerhouse, everything from the phones to the phones Controls behind the scenes.
