This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

At that place have been a number of rumors effectually Intel'south modem business lately and its long-term relationship with Apple. The company is moving up its own publicly announced 5G roadmap and plans after some of these stories broke over the past few weeks, emphasizing that its upcoming XMM 8160 5G modem volition launch more than a one-half-year early, with availability expected in the back half of 2022.

The new fleck will provide a maximum download speed of 6Gbit/s, a rate Intel claims is 3-6x faster than existing LTE modems. Keep in mind, of course, that such rates are fairly theoretical and likely far above what yous'll see in practise, particularly with early generation hardware and limited 5G deployments. And so once more, the claimed rate is still substantially above what companies are delivering with 4G, and should make gigabit deployments over wireless broadband more plausible, provided you accept a solid line-of-sight to your transmitter and skilful pocket-sized cell coverage.

The Intel XMM 8160 5G modem. Credit: Intel Corporation

The XMM 8160 will support functioning in both 5G standalone and non-standalone modes, every bit well as supporting 4G, 3G, and 2G in a single chipset. Intel claims that its 5G modem volition handle all backwards communication in a single device unlike competing modems, which volition crave two chipsets for the same connectivity. The 8160 is capable of connecting simultaneously over 5G and 4G, which Intel claims is disquisitional to ensuring seamless network support in areas where 5G is unavailable. The company likewise claims to support new millimeter moving ridge spectrum and 5G deployments in the sub-6GHz ring (600MHz – 6GHz).

If all this seems a chip confusing, that's because it is. In that location's a lot of 5G applied science coming to market place and a variety of standards supported by various companies, including approaches that volition leverage existing LTE engineering science to hit 5G speeds besides every bit all-new deployments. Intel is apparently positioning itself every bit a universal solution, only first-generation 4G / LTE modems weren't the best performers compared with after hardware and often drew more ability, as they were congenital on a 40nm node compared with the later 28nm parts. Then again, the benefits of dice shrinks for modems are often much smaller than what you'd see from other types of silicon, and then process node may not play a major part hither. And while this is Intel'south outset true 5G modem, it'southward the 2nd product in the XMM 8000 series (the XMM 8060 was a pre-5G device that will not be commercialized).

This also means Intel volition probable ship 5G with Apple tree in 2022. There's always a lag betwixt modem availability and commercial integration, so if the modems are bachelor in the back one-half of this year, integration with the 2022 iPhone, as opposed to the 2022 model, is the most likely scenario.

Intel is bidding to take major market share from companies like Qualcomm subsequently that company dominated the LTE marketplace for multiple years. A trial court recently ruled that Qualcomm must license its modem engineering science to competitors like Intel, and while that's non likely to accept a almost-term impact on the 5G market place, Qualcomm'due south licensing terms are function of how it locked up much of the 4G market for itself over the final generation. Intel and other companies are looking to break that lock and move into the market themselves.

Now Read: Verizon Launches 5G Network That Isn't 'Real' 5G, Verizon Won't Advance 5G Rollout, Despite FCC Fee Reductions, and 5G Standard Finalized in a Major Step Toward Commercialization