Samsung announces world’s first 5G modem dubbed Exynos 5100

Samsung Electronics has today announced that it has developed Exynos Modem 5100, the industry’s first 5G modem that is fully compatible with 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 15 (Rel.15), the most up-to-date standard specification for 5G New Radio (5G-NR).

Built on power-efficient 10-nanometer (nm) process technology, the new modem also supports legacy radio access technologies designed into a single chip.

The Exynos Modem 5100 supports both sub-6GHz and mmWave spectrums specified in 3GPP’s 5G standard as well as legacy networks, including 2G GSM/CDMA, 3G WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, and 4G LTE, with a single chip solution. As 5G is expected to be first deployed over existing network infrastructures, commercial implementation will benefit from the single-chip design that maximizes data transmission efficiency and reliability between other communication networks.

The modem delivers a maximum downlink speed of up to 2-gigabits per second (Gbps) in 5G’s sub-6-gigahertz (GHz) settings and 6Gbps in mmWave settings, which are about 1.7 and five times the data transfer speeds of its predecessor respectively. Fast and stable data communication can also be secured in 4G networks with the downlink speed of 1.6Gbps.

5G’s capability to transmit large-capacity data and real-time low-latency communication is expected to bring new user experiences not only in mobile but also in areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT), ultra-high resolution videos, holograms, real-time artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous driving.

Exynos Modem 5100 is also offered with radio frequency IC (RFIC), Envelope Tracking (ET) and power management IC (PMIC) solutions, and will be available to customers by the end of 2018.