Since our last report in August there has been further activity in the 5G chipset arena. We have previously identified ualcomm’s Snapdragon X50, Intel’s XMM 8060, Samsung’s Exynos 5100 and Hi-Silicon’s Balong 5G01 modems (though the commercial status of the Intel XMM 8060 is unclear). We also previously identified MediaTek’s Helio M70 processor/platform as a (precommercial) 5G chipset. These are being joined by Intel’s XMM 8160 modem (announced) and Hi-Silicon’s Kirin 990 processor/platform (expected to be announced shortly) as well as a Qualcomm processor/platform expected to be announced before the end of 2018. Qualcomm has already released details of its mmWave antenna module (QTM052, designed to complement the X50 modem chipset) and a sub-6 GHz RF front-end module (QPM56xx) developed specifically for 5G NR.
We consider Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50, Samsung Exynos 5100 and Hi-Silicon Balong 5G01 modems to be commercially available; all other 5G silicon listed we consider to be at pre-commercial stage, though some samples may be shipping. Precise commercial status of these chipsets, and of mobile platforms that integrate these modems, is difficult to confirm. MediaTek says
that devices using its Helio M70 modem will be commercially available in 2019; Intel says it expects to ship the XMM 8160 in mid-2019.
Information on performance of pre-commercial 5G chipsets is partial, but the peak downlink speeds for the commercial modems range from 1900 Mbps (for Samsung’s Exynos 5100, which functions as a 4G Cat-19 modem too, to 5 Gbps for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50; both these modems can support up to 8-channel LTE carrier aggregation in the downlink. Intel says its XMM
8160 will have a downlin speed of 6 Gbps and the modem will also support 2G, 3G and 4G services.