The new information superhighway is open, so now it's time to fine-tune your engine. Qualcomm announced its X70 modem on Monday at MWC, which it says can get better range out of existing 5G networks when it debuts in devices toward the end of this year.
Qualcomm's modems appear in most premium US phones, including the Galaxy S22 series and Apple's iPhones.
But competition is ramping up. Mediatek has been gaining share in the US with its success in the Samsung A12 and A32 phones, and the company has said it plans to introduce its first chipset with an integrated millimeter-wave modem this year. Analysts say Apple plans to introduce its own modem in 2023 or 2024.
The X70's key innovation is the Qualcomm AI Suite, which uses new AI processing hardware inside the modem to help phones stay connected to wobbly 5G signals. The new features are AI-based channel state optimization, AI-based millimeter-wave beam management, and AI-based network selection.
Qualcomm's first AI-based optimization move, AI-based antenna tuning, might have helped the current X65 modem to show the distinctly better 4G and mid-band 5G performance I saw when testing the Galaxy S22 line.
"What does all this get you? Double digit performance improvements in throughput, coverage, and link robustness," Qualcomm global VP of marketing Mike Roberts said.
The new technologies make a big difference, Qualcomm's director of product marketing Nitin Dhiman said. In tests in San Francisco, the AI enabled 28% better coverage of a 39GHz millimeter-wave system by being able to tune and select beams better, he noted.
That would extend the range of millimeter-wave panels, mostly installed by Verizon right now and mostly in cities, from the 850 feet I've measured in the past to about 1,100 feet.
AI-based channel state feedback will help improve speeds and connectivity on all frequency bands, according to a Qualcomm slide.
The modem also supports 4x 5G carrier aggregation, standalone millimeter wave, and dual-SIM, dual-active 5G. Those aren't technologies that US carriers are likely to need anytime soon, but they address specific needs in various different countries.
Switched uplink support could potentially help US carriers, as they become able to combine low-band and mid-band channels for faster uploads over longer distances.
Dhiman says the new modem is also more power efficient than previous generations.
Will The iPhone 14 Have an X70 Modem?
Qualcomm says that commercial mobile devices based on the X70 will launch in "late 2022." In theory, that could include the next iPhone, but that probably won't happen. Apple's development process is long enough that it's probably already locked down the X65 units it's working with.
The X70 also probably won't appear in Snapdragon-powered phones, although there's always a chance. The modem will likely be part of 2023's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, and phone makers such as Samsung will wait for it to be integrated there.
Rather, I see potential for PCs and home internet modems to be the first devices with the X70. Qualcomm has said before that it may introduce a PC chipset in late 2022 with a new CPU using technology from its acquisition of Nuvia. The X70 may fit into that plan.
Because home internet equipment doesn't need an integrated phone chipset, it can potentially use a standalone X70, and so X70-based home internet units may come out before phones. Most of that action would be outside the US, though, as the X70's standalone millimeter-wave feature potentially enables new operators in other countries.