Qualified 4G / 5G Summit was held in Hong Kong on Oct. 17, Qualcomm announced its success based on a 5G modem chipset X50 for mobile terminals, enabling 5G data connectivity based on the 28GHz millimeter-wave band and the industry's first 5G Smart phone reference design, causing widespread concern in the industry.
"This 5G smartphone reference design has a very important significance, we introduced the reference design is not intended to define the final characteristics of the 5G mobile phone in advance, but to create a terminal form reference. 'Qualcomm Technologies executive vice president and QCT president Christie "We can take this terminal shape to verify the performance of the technology, such as RF front-end design, antenna placement and performance, etc., and then with the communications equipment supply Operators, operators and OEMs to conduct field tests to further optimize the performance of the 5G NR system.
The appearance is more diverse, 5G mobile phone will meet the whole band connection
As the world's first 5G smart phone reference design, designed to power consumption and size requirements of the phone, the 5G technology testing and optimization, its significance is greater than the product itself.According to the introduction, the reference design by the Qualcomm 5G new air millimeter wave prototype Machine evolved, the 5G mobile phone reference design body before and after the glass material, length 157.25mm, width 76mm, thickness of 9.7mm.
Because the 5G mobile phone prototype is based on the millimeter-wave band, the fuselage if the metal material or the impact of high-frequency signal.Cristiano Armond said that the 5G mobile phone body material considerations, in fact we see now Metal, glass and plastic materials can already use the millimeter-wave band, but in the 802.11ad Wi-Fi standard millimeter wave.We believe this will not bring too much trouble to OEM manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers can still 5G Mobile phone to choose a different body material, and 5G technology will not require the phone must be a material.
Cristiano de Amon further said that the appearance of the material on the basis of which the most important issue is the placement of the antenna, how to make the antenna becomes extremely intelligent, according to the phone material and user holding position to tune. Which is why we continue to invest in RF front-end technology development.It is also so that we can provide better technology solutions for the entire industry to support today's smart phones.For course, for 5G mobile phone, the data connection is not limited to Millimeter wave band, 5G mobile phone will be to achieve 'full spectrum connection' concept, and Qualcomm Xiao X50 chipset to achieve the first 28GHz band connection and deployment of US operators are closely linked to achieve full spectrum connection is only a matter of time.
Cristiano Armon told reporters that we first implemented the 5G data connection at 28GHz, driven by US spectrum licensing and operator deployment, and we conducted a lot of field tests at 28GHz, and we have announced more Qualcomm 5G prototype system test, this year there are a lot of trials are still carried out, which both in the 28GHz millimeter-wave band, but also in the band below 6GHz. Qualcomm will support the first in 2019 launched 5G NR smart phone, it Will be able to take into account the high frequency and low frequency band, both to support the following frequency band 6GHz, such as 3.5GHz, but also to support higher 26GHz, 28GHz or even 39GHz band.
The inner more perfect, millimeter wave to the chip design to bring greater challenges
5G mobile phone needs to bring faster speed, the use of new frequency band, the updated technology put into use, the radio frequency antenna, battery life and components have higher requirements, so that 5G mobile phone design more difficult. • When we introduce higher bandwidth into the terminal, in order to handle the more data it brings, we will ask the terminal to have a better camera, a stronger GPU, a better NPU, etc. Interesting changes bring the direction of smartphone innovation and development, covering a number of areas of smartphone technology.
At the same time, this brings challenges to the 5G mobile phone, including the need for more advanced GPUs and NPUs, the need to provide a more robust application for mobile phone processors, and therefore requires us to use more advanced process nodes, More space for more antennas.
The current generation of 7nm chip plan will be put into mass production in 2018, can be seen in the process process, 5G mobile phone chip into the 7nm process will also be the future of the 7nm process plan, according to TSMC, Samsung and other foundry planning, High probability event.
Cristiano Enam further said that today we are increasingly using modular integration in mobile design, especially in RF front-end design. RF front end is usually designed as a complete system, such as modules In the antenna, the antenna should be placed in a different location, that is, the antenna array, to consider the compensation of different hand grip position to bring the antenna cover and signal effects . So 5G mobile phone and 4G mobile phone design is certainly different. This is why Qualcomm now to introduce 5G mobile phone reference design reasons, which is also to achieve 2019 5G mobile phone business plan.
In the 4G mobile phone and 5G mobile phone differences, the biggest difference lies in the 5G mobile phone using the millimeter-wave band to bring higher rate.Sony mobile communications company product development vice president Kazuo Murata said at the summit, for the realization of 5G, The biggest challenge is whether there is a viable solution for millimeter-wave, which is the challenge that 5G must face.
"We want to keep the high performance we have on the one hand, and on the other hand we want to solve the problem of the relatively small range of communication," said Christopher Amon. Representatives from Telstra and EE also said that the 5G can not be limited to the band below 6GHz, or only in the millimeter-wave band, it is both. We all understand the millimeter-wave signal coverage (transmission distance is relatively short ), But the 5G's fast switching capability can support the removal of large amounts of data into the highest performance network (that is, the millimeter-wave band), so the 5G phone must be able to support running on these bands. 'We are also very confident that Millimeter wave technology plays an important role in the terminal form of 5G smartphones, and when the product based on the 5G reference design starts the field test, it is believed that the results will be seen.
Of course, the millimeter-wave band will increase the complexity of the 5G chip, especially in the RF front-end part of its complexity is mainly reflected in several aspects, one increase in the number of antennas, in most cases the antenna should be designed in the system Within the location of the transceiver, thus increasing the complexity of adding more antennas, you need more antenna sharing technology; the second is more modules to join, performance and size management is very important. For Qualcomm, it will undoubtedly be excited, because Qualcomm has its own Qualcomm RF360 RF front-end product portfolio.He can see, 5G further innovation and the introduction of new solutions for Qualcomm will bring beyond the previous greater opportunities.