Abstract: With the advent of the post-epidemic era, the global economic market has gradually recovered, and the output of 5G equipment has gradually increased. Taking smartphones as an example, global smartphone shipments increased by 5.7% year-on-year last year, and sales are expected to increase by 5.5% year-on-year. The increase in 5G mobile phone sales is an important manifestation of the increase in 5G penetration. According to the IDC Global Smartphone Tracker, China's 5G penetration rate will reach about 30% in 2022. With the gradual increase of 5G smart devices, especially 5G smartphones, the demand for 5G chips has also shown a foreseeable growth trend, and the 5G chip market is facing a new round of opportunities and challenges.
With the advent of the post-epidemic era, the global economic market has gradually recovered, and the output of 5G equipment has gradually increased. Taking smartphones as an example, global smartphone shipments increased by 5.7% year-on-year last year, and sales are expected to increase by 5.5% year-on-year. The increase in 5G mobile phone sales is an important manifestation of the increase in 5G penetration. According to the IDC Global Smartphone Tracker, China's 5G penetration rate will reach about 30% in 2022. With the gradual increase of 5G smart devices, especially 5G smartphones, the demand for 5G chips has also shown a foreseeable growth trend, and the 5G chip market is facing a new round of opportunities and challenges.
Who is the first in the competition for 5G chips?
In the 4G era, the mobile phone baseband chip market is competing for supremacy, and the competition between 16 manufacturers around the world is fierce. Since 5G pursues higher data throughput, lower latency and greater network capacity, 5G baseband chips must support different 5G frequency bands on the one hand, and on the other hand, they need to take into account extremely high download and upload speeds, while also reducing power consumption, so the design of 5G baseband is extremely difficult.
Compared with the chaos in the 4G era, only chip manufacturers with strong research and development strength can get tickets for the 5G era. At present, there are five major 5G chip manufacturers in the world that occupy the vast majority of the market share, namely Huawei and Tsinghua Unigroup zhanrui in the Chinese mainland, MediaTek in Taiwan, and Qualcomm and Samsung in the international giant.
△ Global 5G smartphone baseband shipment market share, Counterpoint
Compared with other competitors, Qualcomm has a leading position in the 5G field, and almost all of the high-end flagship 5G mobile phones use Qualcomm's 5G chips. According to data released by research agency Counterpoint, Qualcomm's global 5G smartphone baseband shipment market share in Q4 2021 has reached 76%, an increase of 13% year-on-year, becoming the undisputed first in the industry. This is mainly due to the increase in sales of Apple's iPhone 13 series using Qualcomm's 5G baseband, as well as procurement demand from other ODM/OEM foundries, including smartphones and communication modules. Compared with MediaTek' main supply of low-end mobile phones, Qualcomm Snapdragon's customers are concentrated in high-end areas and have higher profitability.
From X50 to X70, review the history of Qualcomm's 5G baseband evolution
△ Released Snapdragon 5G modem
Qualcomm's technological leadership in the field of 5G stems from years of long-term accumulation. As early as the end of the 1990s, Qualcomm had been conducting research on basic technologies such as millimeter wave, MIMO, and advanced radio frequency.
In 2016, Qualcomm launched the world's first 5G modem Snapdragon X50 at the 4G/5G Summit. The Snapdragon X50 uses a 10nm process that leverages the large bandwidth provided by the 28GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) band, combined with advanced signal processing technology, to achieve 5Gbps download speeds. After the launch of the Snapdragon X50, it has played a huge role in promoting the commercialization of 5G. The interoperability tests of the vast majority of mainstream equipment suppliers in the world, the laboratory and live network tests of most operators, and the development of 5G terminal products by the vast majority of OEMs are based on this chip, and many of the 5G smartphones, hotspots, and fixed wireless terminals listed at that time are equipped with Snapdragon X50.
2019 can be said to be the first year of 5G commercialization, this year Qualcomm launched the second generation of 5G modem Snapdragon X55. In terms of process, the Snapdragon X55 has been upgraded to 7 nanometers, which can support FDD and TDD frequency bands, and can also support SA and NSA networking modes. The upload speed has been increased to 3Gbps and the download speed has been increased to 7Gbps. In addition, there are two key technical features: 4G/5G spectrum sharing, that is, in the same cell, the Snapdragon X55 can share the overlapping spectrum of 4G and 5G at the same time; and the full-dimensional MIMO, supported by this technology, the antenna array of the cell can also be beamformed and beam-directed vertically in addition to the horizontal direction, thereby improving the coverage and efficiency of the entire space. The Snapdragon X55 drove the second wave of 5G terminals, expanding 5G from smartphones to more types of terminals such as CPEs, 5G Wi-Fi routers, laptops, tablets, and connected cars.
In 2020, Qualcomm launched the third-generation 5G modem Snapdragon X60. The first is that the process has been upgraded from 7 nanometers to 5 nanometers, which makes the 5G baseband chip more energy efficient and the board area becomes smaller. In addition, the Snapdragon X60 is the world's first 5G modem to support the aggregation of all major frequency bands and their combinations, including millimeter wave and Sub-6GHz FDD and TDD bands, providing great flexibility for 5G deployments. The Snapdragon X60 also supports Voice-over-NR (VoNR), which is also the direction of 5G network architecture evolution from NSA to SA. Compared with the X55, the downlink rate of the Snapdragon X60 is up to 7.5Gbps, and the uplink rate is up to 3Gbps, and the power consumption has decreased significantly. In addition, advanced technologies such as 5G Powersave and Qualcomm Smart Transmit have also brought system-level improvements in performance, speed, and coverage optimization to the Snapdragon X60.
In 2021, Qualcomm launched the fourth generation of 5G modem Snapdragon X65. In terms of process, the Snapdragon X65 was upgraded to 4 nanometers. The Snapdragon X65 is the world's first modem and RF system to increase the 5G stand-alone air interface rate to 10Gbps, and the first modem and RF system to support 3GPP Release 16. Snapdragon X65 also supports flexible software upgrades, which can be targeted with operators in different regions of the world to meet the requirements and deployment plans of operators in different regions of the world. In addition, the Snapdragon X65 also supports Qualcomm 5G PowerSave 2.0, Qualcomm Smart Transmit 2.0, Qualcomm AI auxiliary signal enhancement technology, and Sub-6GHz aggregation of Sub-6GHz, millimeter wave and millimeter wave.
The Snapdragon X65 also supports wideband envelope tracking, which allows the amplitude of the power amplifier's power supply to be dynamically adjusted with the amplitude of the power amplifier's transmitted signal. In layman's terms, when the mobile phone wants to transmit a large signal, the power supply voltage of the power amplifier is increased a little, and when a small signal needs to be sent, it is lowered a little to achieve the purpose of perfect matching and on-demand supply. Broadband envelope tracking technology can greatly improve transmission efficiency and reduce power consumption, resulting in longer mobile phone battery life.
It is worth mentioning that qualcomm Snapdragon X65 also supports the world's first AI antenna tuning technology, which brings significant improvements to cellular technology performance and energy efficiency. Compared with the previous generation of technology, the accuracy of the opponent holding terminal detection through AI can be improved by 30%. This enhancement can lead to enhanced antenna tuning for faster data transfer, improved coverage, and longer battery life. In addition, the 10Gbps peak rate supported by the Snapdragon X65 is 100 times the peak rate of the early LTE, which marks the arrival of the 10Gbps 5G era.
In 2022, Qualcomm released the fifth-generation 5G modem Snapdragon X70. The Snapdragon X70 still uses 4nm in the process and supports an uplink peak rate of 3.5 Gbps and a downlink peak rate of 10 Gbps.
The Snapdragon X70 also introduces the new 3rd generation Qualcomm 5G PowerSave, which combines a 4nm baseband process with advanced modem and RF technologies, such as Qualcomm QET7100 broadband envelope tracking technology and AI-assisted adaptive antenna tuning, which dynamically optimizes transmit and receive paths in a variety of user scenarios and signal conditions, significantly reducing power consumption and extending battery life. In addition, the Snapdragon X70 is the world's first modem and RF system to integrate a 5G AI processor; the Snapdragon X70 is also the only modem and RF system in the world that can support all 5G commercial frequency bands from 600MHz to 41GHz.
The Snapdragon X70 supports AI-assisted channel status feedback and dynamic optimization. Through the blessing of AI, the terminal can more intelligently detect the channel status in real time and report to the base station, and the base station can also choose a more appropriate modulation method and better timely timely timely for the terminal according to the channel status reported by the terminal when dispatching downstream. The introduction of AI capabilities makes the prediction and feedback of channel state more accurate, and the base station can be better optimized dynamically, helping to improve throughput and other key performance indicators.
The Snapdragon X70 also supports the world's first AI-assisted millimeter wave beam management. Millimeter waves use antenna arrays to transmit and receive signals, and combine with beamforming techniques to obtain high-gain directional beams. By introducing AI into mmWave beam management, beamforming technology can be added, especially in mobile scenarios to make predictions, or to optimize mmWave beam focus and direction in complex environments, which can enhance the wireless signal connection between the terminal and the base station, improve the signal-to-noise ratio while reducing transmission power and improving energy efficiency.
Ai-assisted network selection is also a highlight of the Snapdragon X70. In the actual deployment, the network environment faced by operators is very complex, especially Chinese operators, with 5G/4G/3G/2G multiple operating frequencies and different network standards, and the complex network environment will affect the flexibility and security of the network. Intelligent identification and monitoring of network patterns through AI technology can help predict and avoid certain dropped or risky connection states, resulting in better mobility and link robustness.
Qualcomm system-level solutions continue to expand 5G leadership
From Snapdragon X50 to Snapdragon X70, Qualcomm has continuously released 5th generation modems, laying an irreplaceable dominant position in the 5G field through continuous innovation of product roadmaps.
5G chips require a close cooperation between RF and baseband chips, and Qualcomm has a huge technological leadership in this field. Qualcomm has been committed to creating an end-to-end solution from modem to antenna, covering modems, complete RF front-end to antennas, and supporting sub-6GHz bands and millimeter waves, while other manufacturers need to integrate third-party suppliers in RF Transceivers, LNA, Filters, PA, Switches, Antenna, FEMs and other RF links.
As the design complexity of 5G mobile phones continues to increase and users' pursuit of performance continues to increase, the advantages of Qualcomm's system-level solutions are also more prominent. Whether from the perspective of functional characteristics or product commercialization, Qualcomm's product portfolio is more advanced in the 5G semiconductor market.
Editor: Xin ZhiXun - Langke Sword