Qualcomm has hit the headlines recently for its re-entry into the macro RAN infrastructure market, courtesy of Open RAN, but whenever it ventures out of its smartphone kingdom, it faces a new set of competitive challenges, so it is wise to keep its options open.
That policy of expanding its architectures both up and down in terms of product size and performance sees it unveiling a module that it hopes will accelerate sluggish progress in large-scale Industrial IoT deployments; as well as a reference design targeting that difficult market for cellular, the non-smartphone consumer device.
The 315 5G IoT Modem was designed for IIoT applications that require high performance, resilience, ruggedized devices and low energy consumption, such as utilities, manufacturing, construction and precision agriculture. Qualcomm will aim to target the growth in private and industrial networks, most of which are currently being deployed with LTE, but which will migrate to 5G when the costs are right – the chip provider was keen to stress that the 315 is backwards compatible with its 4G modules.
In IIoT markets, pre-integrated modules are essential to reduce cost and time to market for vendors, since each industry, and even each application, will have its own requirements. In many cases, specialist manufacturers will design devices that suit the particular use case, but they will not have the expertise or the resources (given the low price points of most of the gadgets) to optimize all the wireless connectivity.
The 315 offers such customers a module that integrates all the modem and antenna capabilities so that they can build upgradeable 4G and 5G bridges and other units for the IIoT. Such a product plays to the strength Qualcomm has been building up in recent years, of offering an end-to-end solution that includes all the RF front end, antenna, wireless and baseband functions in one package.
It amassed a good list of IIoT vendors to endorse the 315, including Bosch, Telit, Schneider Electric and Siemens, as well as embedded device makers such as MeiG, HMS, Fibocom and Quectel.
The new product will be commercially available in the second half of 2021, and will “help stimulate and scale the 5G IoT industry and enable the transitions needed for Industry 4.0”, as Qualcomm put it. Although it did not disclose pricing, it said it will be priced with the objective in mind, of making 5G IoT more “widely available and attainable”.
The modem supports sub-6 GHz 5G New Radio bands and operates in 5G NR Standalone mode only, though with the ability to switch to LTE when 5G coverage is absent. It can be used in private or public 5G networks, and can be integrated with existing Ethernet and wireline connections.
The company acknowledges that IIoT will be a slow burn because many industries work on 20-year technology cycles and will not upgrade to 5G until they are sure it supports full mission critical performance, and until they really require its capabilities.
“5G future-proofing for IIoT will take effort to invest over several years,” Vieri Vanghi, VP of product management at Qualcomm, told Fierce Electronics. He accepted that Industry 4.0 “is moving at a glacial pace…It will take years, but we need to start now”.
Qualcomm has also launched reference designs for 5G-enabled M.2 cards that can be embedded in non-smartphone devices such as laptops, routers and gaming gadgets, in order to simplify and accelerate the introduction of cellular connectivity to such products. It claims these are the first 5G reference designs to support 10Gbps speeds.
The M.2 interface is a common form factor for solid state drives and for the connector cards used in most computing devices. Qualcomm said this format could be used to create a plug-and-play framework for OEMs, making it easier for them to design devices with integrated 5G.
Durga Malladi, general manager of Qualcomm’s 4G/5G technology group, said the 5G M.2 reference framework would “tackle many 5G design complexities upfront so that OEMs don’t have to”.
WiFi, rather than cellular, has always been the default wireless connection in non-handset devices, and 4G struggled to gain any significant position in products that are rarely used in highly mobile situations. Cellular connectivity has tended to come at a premium over WiFi-only, deterring consumers, and it can entail an extra data bill from the operator.
The more PCs and other devices can be cellular-enabled cheaply, with pre-integrated modules, the lower the barriers for vendors to incorporate 4G and 5G, argues Qualcomm – and many operators do now offer multi-device tariffs that reduce consumer resistance. But the only way that most users will see the need to go beyond WiFi in their laptop, tablet or gaming console will be if 5G really does enable applications that are impossible, or inferior, with other connections. So Qualcomm and others will be pinning their hopes on user enthusiasm for advanced AR/VR gaming or tactile Internet applications, used on the move.
The new reference designs are powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon X65, and its lower-end X62, 5G modem/RF systems, which support the new Release 16 5G standards, including extended carrier aggregation and extended-range millimeter wave bands. Qualcomm expects products based on the designs to be available later this year, and Malladi said it remains “committed to leading the acceleration and expansion of 5G beyond smartphones”.
Finally, Qualcomm announced the availability of its latest Snapdragon mobile platform system-on-chip, the 778G 5G, which targets premium and midrange smartphones with a strong emphasis on enabling high end gaming, accelerated AI functionality, graphics and computational photography. The platform is the successor to the 768G, which was launched last March.
Qualcomm said several handset makers have already adopted the chipset, particularly in China, including Motorola, Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme and Honor. Devices based on the SoC should be commercially available during the second quarter of this year.
The chipset incorporates Kyro 670, an eight-core central processor, and an Adreno 642L graphics engine. Each claimed to provide a 40% performance boost over previous versions. Its modem is the X53 5G, which supports sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave bands along with Qualcomm’s FastConnect 6700 system for Wi-Fi 6/6E, at speeds of up to 2.9Gbps, as well as the latest Bluetooth 5.2.
Snapdragon 778G also incorporates the company’s sixth generation AI engine and Hexagon 770 processor, which claim to be able to handle 12 trillion operations per second. The device is built in foundry TSMC’s 6nm process.