Smartwatches, AR and XR glasses, notebooks, surveillance cameras and similar compact devices should be able to be equipped with 4G and 5G relatively cheaply in the future. With the Snapdragon X35, Qualcomm has presented a corresponding modem RF system that also drops the old 2G and 3G standards.
Equipping a device with 5G can still come with high costs and form factor constraints. As a cheaper and smaller alternative to Gigabit-capable solutions such as its own Snapdragon X65 or X70, Qualcomm has now presented the Snapdragon X35 in the run-up to MWC 2023, which is said to be significantly smaller and easier to integrate. According to the manufacturer, the modem RF system is therefore suitable, for example, for smartwatches that have so far only been offered with LTE. But space is also scarce in AR and XR glasses, so the X35 could serve this segment. The solution is significantly smaller and more energy-efficient than previous LTE modems, although the manufacturer did not provide any information on the package dimensions or consumption when asked.
IoT devices such as smart surveillance cameras can also be connected to the 5G network with the X35. Qualcomm also names cheaper fixed wireless access systems (FWA) for 4G and 5G as a fixed network replacement and cheaper notebooks as potential areas of application for the new solution. It is not uncommon for notebooks to be equipped with mobile communications, even today resulting in additional costs of several hundred euros.
X35 uses NR-Light of 3GPP Release 17
With the Snapdragon X35, Qualcomm serves the so-called “NR-Light” segment, a category of solutions created by the 3GPP standardization committee for solutions between the simplest IoT modems and complex gigabit solutions, for example in smartphones. NR-Light stands for New Radio Light, i.e. 5G in a simplified form and is defined in 3GPP Release 17.
Snapdragon X35 (Image: Qualcomm)Reduced capabilities for reduced cost and consumption
Accordingly, the Snapdragon X35 does not come close to the performance of the top models from Qualcomm, which have already reached the 10 Gbit/s mark in the example of the Snapdragon X70 and are now even equipped with their own AI processor. The X35, on the other hand, only supports a carrier with a bandwidth of 20 MHz in the sub-6 GHz spectrum (FDD and TDD) and allows a maximum of 220 Mbit/s in the downlink and up to 100 Mbit/s in the uplink. In addition, only one antenna for reception or transmission is standard. The X35 also relies on a simplified modulation of 256 QAM for the downlink and 64 QAM for the uplink.
2G, 3G and non- Standalone fly out
However, the modem also loses complexity by doing without the old 2G standards and 3G, which is no longer used in this country either, because the X35 is only designed for 4G and 5G. Qualcomm even goes one step further and only supports 5G standalone (5G SA) and thus no longer the 5G non-standalone (5G NSA) that is still used in many places and also in Germany, which still uses the old LTE core in the network and only 5G on the radio side (New Radio). The X35 thus uses a direct 5G connection without the anchor in the LTE network required for 5G NSA. With the new solution, Qualcomm supports both data connections and telephoning via 4G (VoLTE) and 5G (VoNR). In addition, Qualcomm integrates location determination using GNSS on the L1 and L5 bands into the X35.
Use in end devices from 2024
< p class="p text-width">In addition to the Snapdragon X35, Qualcomm today announced a Snapdragon X32 with an even further reduced range of functions, but did not give any further technical details. According to the manufacturer, both solutions are currently being sampled and should be used in end devices in the first half of 2024.
ComputerBase has received information about this article from Qualcomm under NDA. The only requirement was the earliest possible publication date.