Ahead of Mobile World Congress 2018, Qualcomm took the wraps off a number of new products and technologies, including the first LTE modem designed to support speeds of 2Gb/s.

The Snapdragon X24 LTE modem was said to be “the world’s first announced Category 20 LTE modem supporting up to 2Gb/s download speeds”, and is also the first announced chip built using a “leading-edge” 7-nanometer FinFET process. Its advanced cellular features “strengthen the LTE foundation for future 5G NR multimode devices and networks”, it said.

Snapdragon X24 is Qualcomm’s eighth-generation LTE modem and the third in its Gigabit LTE line. It will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress later this month, in partnership with Ericsson, Telstra and Netgear.

Qualcomm stated the modem “supports up to 7-times carrier aggregation” in the downlink, as well as 4×4 MIMO on up to five aggregated LTE carriers, which are “both mobile industry firsts”, for up to 20 concurrent spatial LTE streams. This, it said, will enable devices to use “all spectrum assets available from a mobile operator”, whether in licensed spectrum or with Licence Assisted Access (LAA).

The modem has started sampling to customers, with the first commercial devices expected by the end of 2018.

Chipsets-as-a-service
Qualcomm company also unveiled Wireless Edge Services, a set of trusted software services intended to enable enterprise and industrial IoT customers to securely provision, connect and manage long life-cycles of “billions of intelligent wireless devices” through cloud platforms.

The software is expected to be exposed through new APIs and available on “select Qualcomm chipsets” – initially MDM9206 (for industrial IoT products), MDM9628 (automotive) and QCA4020 (home IoT), before being extended to some Snapdragon products.

Qualcomm expects the software “to facilitate the integration, processing, analysis, learning and trusted exchange of information with wireless edge devices, and unlock new use cases, services, ecosystems and business models, creating additional value across many industries”.

Interestingly, the company also said Wireless Edge Services “support a new Chipsets-as-a-Service business model, in which the value of certain chipset capabilities can be realised through services”.

Initial availability is slated for H2 2018.

Cellular IoT
Also announced was an LTE IoT Software Development Kit (SDK) for the MDM9206 global LTE modem. Qualcomm said the SDK “ is designed to assist original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), application and solution developers, new IoT entrants and other non-traditional ecosystem players in the creation of new cellular-enabled IoT applications, products and solutions – accessing the power of the application processor, connectivity, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) capabilities and peripheral interfaces integrated in the MDM9206 LTE IoT modem”.

The silicon, which is “currently featured in various IoT hardware modules from third-party providers”, includes a 1.3GHz Cortex A7 processor, and is compatible with IoT technologies including eMTC (Cat M1) and NB-IoT (Cat NB-1).

Along with Wireless Edge Services, the SDK is “part of Qualcomm Technologies’ overall efforts to address some of the key challenges within IoT”. Availability is scheduled for the first half of 2018.

5G NR progress
Unsurprisingly, Qualcomm was also keen to trumpet its 5G NR credentials, stating it will be holding demonstrations at Mobile World Congress, following a showcase it recently held in San Diego.

The vendor said following 3GPP approval of the first 5G NR standard late in 2017, the standards group had approved various technology studies which are “expected to define the next phase of 5G NR in Release 16 and beyond”.

Developments touted include 5G NR spectrum sharing; private 5G networks for industrial IoT; and 5G NR-based cellular vehicle-to-everything (V2X).

“We’re excited to demonstrate these advancements at Mobile World Congress and showcase how our technologies are designed to expand the reach of 5G NR to new industries, new deployment and business models, and new ecosystem participants,” said Durga Malladi, SVP, engineering, at Qualcomm Technologies.