Qualcomm presents Snapdragon X35
Qualcomm announced the new Snapdragon X35 5G modem on Thursday 9 February 2023. It is the first modem in the world with 5G NR-Light technology, i.e. a new class of 5G that can be fully exploited even by the smallest devices.
Qualcomm's goal is therefore to bridge the existing gap between the data exchange speeds of high performance devices and those generally less performing, such as all smarthome or IoT accessories.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon X35 5G brings numerous benefits and certainly immediately attracted attention of many companies in the tech field. A first benefit is that Snapdragon X35 will bring 5G to a host of other devices such as premium smartwatches, next-generation XR eyewear, industrial IoT, and many more.
Furthermore, Snapdragon X35 is designed with a simplified architecture that allows for low costs, less complexity, low power consumption and, last but not least, even smaller chip sizes. All this is made possible by the wide set of RF-Modem functions that Snapdragon X35 is equipped with, namely:
Qualcomm QET5100 Envelope Tracking Qualcomm Smart Transmit Technology Qualcomm 5G Ultra-Low Latency Suite Qualcomm 5G PowerSave Gen 4 All these peculiarities could guide device manufacturers to gradually replace devices that currently work with LTE CAT4+ technology, consequently increasing support for 5G and thus finally creating the long-awaited unified 5G network. We are obviously talking about a project that could last a long time.
However, don't worry about all the devices that don't have 5G yet, because thanks to the support for both LTE and for 5G NR-Light, Snapdragon X35 is backwards compatible and future-proof, thus allowing manufacturers to develop devices with a wide range of compatibility between the various 4G and 5G bands.
Along with Snapdragon X35, Qualcomm also announced Snapdragon X32. The details relating to this other version are very scarce, so it could be an even lighter and cheaper version of the X35.
Regarding the release date of the first commercial devices with these two new modems, Qualcomm announced that it is scheduled for the first half of 2024 . In any case, the deployment for the first tests is already planned for the first half of 2023.