Intel launches its second 5G modem because its first can not win

New chips are announced all the time, and while some prove to be critical components of the flagship products, few of them are as important as Intel's next XMM 8160, the chip maker's second 5G modem. The company said that it "had made the strategic decision to launch the launch of this modem six months earlier to provide a major 5G solution," a tacit acknowledgment that its first 5G chip, the XMM 8060, does not will not live up to it. the first efforts of the best competitor Qualcomm.

Understanding the importance of this announcement requires some information on 5G and Intel. Operators and manufacturers around the world are eager to support the recently developed 5G cellular standard, which promises a drastic increase in the speed and responsiveness of mobile devices – assuming that a device contains a new 5G chip. Intel had previously promised the release of its first 5G modem in mid-2019, the XMM 8060, but to date, no smartphone has been announced with the chip.

At the same time, Qualcomm has recruited some 20 companies to manufacture 5G devices using its chips. The first Inseego 5G Home Broadband Modem is already installed in some US homes, and Netgear will release the first 5G mobile hotspot this month, both featuring Qualcomm chips. Motorola has also committed to using Qualcomm's modems in its 5G Moto Mod accessory, which Xiaomi has said about the upcoming 5G version of its Mi Mix 3.

But both Qualcomm and Intel have struggled to produce 5G components small enough to fit into modern smartphones. While Qualcomm originally introduced a surprisingly large 5G test phone, it later revealed smaller second-generation antennas that can be used in handheld devices. At the same time, Intel has publicly introduced oversized 5G prototypes that would not fit in tablets or conventional phones, and announced that it was preparing to market 5G laptops by the end of 2019 .

By necessity, the announcement of the XMM 8160 was expected. On November 2nd, a report stated that Apple would miss the first generation of 5G phones as it was waiting for the "XMM 8161", a cooler and more energy-efficient suite of the XMM 8060. According to the report, Apple was planning to give It takes about a year and a half for Intel to solve XMM 8161 issues, while retaining the smallest of MediaTek builders as a case-by-case backup.

Several specifications of the XMM 8160 are public. It is therefore not surprising that it is a promising medium for the millimeter wave radio spectrum and less than 6 GHz, with download speeds of up to 6 Gbps. And it promises to include both 5G support and legacy compatibility for 2G, 3G and 4G networks within a single chip, an implementation superior to the two-chip requirement first 5G modems.

As Intel notes, this will avoid the "added complexity, power management and form factor adjustments of two separate modems for 5G and old connectivity" that will end up in competing products. In other words, a single-chip 5G solution allows phone designers to create smaller, simpler, and less powerful devices.

An open question remains how XMM 8160 will be cool and energy efficient. While Intel shows an image of the new modem "smaller than an American penny", it is unclear how the company will actually manufacture the chip, given the difficulties it has recently encountered to go from the chip manufacturing process. 14 nanometers to a 10 nanometer manufacturing. We asked Intel if the chip will use a process of 7, 10 or 14 nanometers, and we were told that the company "will have more to share on this subject in the future".

Regardless of how it is made, Intel said it expects the XMM 8160 to be available to partners starting in the second half of 2019, with the portion delivered in the initial commercial devices "in the first half of 2020 ". Unless anticipated access to Apple, this seems to confirm the announced schedule for the launch of an iPhone 5G by 2020.