5G NR-Light is considered ideal for use cases like surveillance cameras, wearables and consumer IoT devices
Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon X35 5G Modem-RF System chipset, a 5G NR-Light — or reduced capability (RedCap) — modem designed for lower-cost, smaller form-factor devices. According to the vendor, this is the first chipset of its kind and can enable peak data rates of up to 220 Mb/s.
5G NR-Light is a device platform introduced in 3GPP Release 17 designed to support 150 Mbps and 50 Mbps in the downlink and uplink, respectively, making it ideal for devices that demand less power and bandwidth like surveillance cameras, industrial sensors, wearables and consumer IoT devices.
In a blog post, Qualcomm slots RedCap in between (see image below) mission-critical IoT, served currently by consumer-like NR-based eMBB, but shortly by developing URLLC provisions, and massive-scale IoT, served by non-NR NB-IoT or LTE-M (or non-cellular LPWA tech like LoRaWAN).
“Snapdragon X35 offers a device platform that bridges the complexity and capability gap between the extremes in 5G today and addresses the need for mid-tier use cases,” the company said. “This lower cost option provides device makers with a long-term migration path to replace LTE CAT4+ devices, ultimately increasing 5G adoption and allowing for faster transition to a unified 5G network.”
The X35 chipset also supports dual-frequency GNSS (L1+L5) and all spectrum bands within Sub-6GHz, FDD and TDD.
In addition, Qualcomm also revealed the Snapdragon X32 5G Modem-RF System, a modem-to-antenna solution built to lower complexity and fuel cost-efficient NR-Light devices.
Sampling for both chipsets is expected to begin in the first half of this year, with commercial mobile devices expected by the first half of 2024.
