Qualcomm Inc. introduced three new chip products today at MWC Barcelona, commonly known as Mobile World Congress, that included its most powerful processor to date for Android devices and two computing modules designed to power carriers’ 5G networks.

Qualcomm is a leading supplier of chips for handsets. Over the last few years, the company has sought to establish a presence in the carrier market as well by introducing products for telecommunications providers. In effect, Qualcomm is looking to supply chips both for phones and for the carrier networks over which phones connect to the web.

The new processor for Android devices that the company introduced today is called the Snapdragon 888 Plus. It’s an improved version of Qualcomm’s current top-of-the-line mobile processor, the Snapdragon 888, which powers flagship devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S21. Both products are systems-on-chip that combine a central processing unit with more specialized computing modules, including a graphics processing unit for rendering graphics and a machine learning accelerator. 

The Snapdragon 888 Plus features an improved version of the original CPU with an increased top frequency of 2.995 gigahertz. The new maximum speed represents a just over 5% improvement over the standard Snapdragon 888. Qualcomm has also boosted the processor’s machine learning performance by 20%, to 32 trillion operations per second, an increase its engineers achieved in part by optimizing the onboard software.

5G opportunities

The Snapdragon 888 Plus is joined by a pair of new computing modules for carriers. The amount of data traffic zipping the world’s telecommunications infrastructure is growing every year and, as a result, the amount of computing power necessary to process this traffic is growing as well. Qualcomm’s new modules aim to help carriers meet the increasing demand.  

The first product, the 5G DU X100 Accelerator Card, can be installed in a cell tower to help process nearby mobile devices’ data traffic. A modern cell tower has two main sets of components: antennas and a cluster of servers for processing the data passing going the antennas. The DU X100 (pictured) attaches to the servers via a PCIe port to assist with processing.

According to Qualcomm, the chip is capable of performing a range of tasks. Smartphones send data to cell towers by encoding the information in a radio signal known as a carrier wave. Qualcomm’s DU X100 can decode signals from the carrier wave and remove any interference that may have found its way into the data. Moreover, the new chip helps  with the computations involved in transferring data received by a cell tower’s antenna to the onboard baseband unit, a component that forwards information to the core of a carrier’s network.

Besides receiving signals from smartphones, a cell tower is also responsible for sending them data such as incoming texts. In modern networks, the data sending process includes a step known as beamforming that Qualcomm’s DU X100 can perform as well. 

Beamforming allows a cell tower to send radio signals in a specific direction rather than broadcasting them all around as traditional transmitters do. Using the technology, carriers can improve internet coverage for users by sending data to their smartphones over the most efficient path in the air to maximize signal quality. Another benefit is that, because the radio waves move in a specific direction toward the user’s smartphone rather than scattering in the air around the cell tower, there’s less interference for other customers.

Beamforming and the other tasks that the DU X100 performs are normally handled by the CPUs inside a cell tower’s servers. Qualcomm says its chip performs the tasks more efficiently than CPUs, thereby lowering electricity usage. The company says it also decreases the number of processors that carriers have to buy, which can potentially reduce hardware costs. 

The concept is similar to what Nvidia Corp. and Intel Corp. have implemented with their DPU and IPU chips, respectively. The two product lines offload tasks from a server’s main CPU to increase processing efficiency.

Qualcomm’s DU X100 targets cell towers that use the 5G networking standard. A second important networking standard the chip supports is Open RAN. Open RAN allows hardware products to communicate with each other even if they were made by different suppliers, which means Qualcomm’s DU X100 will be compatible with carrier equipment from other companies.

“We are working closely with mobile operators, network equipment vendors, standards bodies and other key stakeholders, to enable the deployment of innovative, high-performance, virtualized and modular 5G networks at scale,” said Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm’s 5G, mobile broadband and infrastructure business.

The other computing module Qualcomm introduced for carriers today is the FSM200xx. It can be used to build small cells, miniature cell towers that are commonly used to provide internet coverage at large indoor spaces such as airport terminals.

Qualcomm said that the module is set to begin sampling in 2022 and will be manufactured using a four-nanometer chip fabrication process. Currently, no semiconductor maker has a production line capable of making four-nanometer chips, but it appears that Qualcomm expects the technology to become available in time for the product’s 2022 initial release date. It expects those next-generation semiconductors to provide significant efficiency benefits. 

According to Qualcomm, the four-nanometer process will reduce chip electricity requirements to such an extent that the FSM200xx won’t need to be connected to a power outlet. Rather, the module will draw power from nearby networking equipment using a technology known as Power over Ethernet. Qualcomm says removing the need to have a power outlet near to small cells will make hardware setup easier.

Image: Qualcomm