Qualcomm's been making huge strides in developing the 5G future lately, but it isn't the only company committed to this venture. Intel recently announced a couple new chips that it's currently working on, and the XMM 8060 – it's first commercial 5G modem – will be shipping out in just a couple of years.
The XM 8060 is the first addition to Intel's XMM 8000 series of modems, and it'll be able to support standalone and non-standalone 5G NR, 4G, 3G/CDMA, and 2G networks. Commerical devices that are based on the XMM 8060 should begin shipping in mid-2019, but as the XMM 8000 series grows, Intel will be able to integrate this power into smartphones, computers, vehicles, etc.
We won't see a full deployment of 5G networks until some point in 2020, so while we're waiting, Intel also announced that its XMM 7660 will be available for use in 2019. The XMM 7660 is a Cat-19 LTE modem, and it's capable of download speeds reaching as high as 1.6 Gbps. That's not as fast as what we'll be able to see with 5G, but it's considerably quicker than what current 4G LTE is capable of.
Intel's XMM 7660 is the successor to the XMM 7560 that was announced earlier this year, and Intel says that the XMM 7560 is currently being used and tested by smartphone makers with successful Gigabit-class speeds. A timeframe for its rollout isn't concrete quite yet, but commercial products should start shipping with it as soon as next year.
Qualcomm achieves first end-to-end 5G system based on 3GPP Standard
