At the 2018 Qualcomm China Technology and Cooperation Summit, Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon announced the launch of the 5G pilot program. Qualcomm and Lenovo, OPPO, VIVO, Xiaomi, ZTE and other Chinese mobile phone manufacturers released commercial applications for 5G new air interface standards. RF terminals, RF coaxial connector in 5G opportunities around the world, and it is estimated that 5G phones will be released in 2019.

    Speaking of Qualcomm and 5G, it is Qualcomm's RF front end (RFFE). With the new era of 5G, the RF front-end has become one of the big challenges in building mobile devices to adapt to 5G NR 6 GHz and millimeter wave deployment worldwide. 5G technology has a higher design complexity, thus specifying a tighter combination of modems, transceivers, RF antennas and networks. Can be seen from Gigabit LTE, different band combinations and multi-carrier aggregation can produce higher rates, and 5G will overlap on this basis, including bands below 6GHz and millimeter-wave bands will bring a variety of The combination of frequency bands, and even up to tens of thousands of frequency bands. Therefore, many companies must establish better solutions through innovation.

    Qualcomm's RF front-end components form a rich, complete system-level modem-to-antenna RF front-end platform solution that helps OEMs quickly scale their mobile devices and build them all World expansion. Qualcomm's broad range of RF front-end platform products include gallium arsenide (GaAs) power dividers, envelope trackers, multimode power amplifiers and modules, RF switches, independent and integrated filter modules, and coverage for cellular and other Connected technology antenna tuner.

    Therefore, the RF front-end is not only the basic technology of multi-mode and multi-band smartphones, but also directly affects the battery life of the device, the appearance of the display (frame size), indoor and outdoor signal reception, call quality, call stability and data. Transmission speed, etc.

    The RF front-end is one of Qualcomm's most critical investment areas for several years. RF front-end solution from modem to tom-to-antenna. Through the RF front-end technology, the radio signal can be better distinguished, and the information received by the modem is converted into a network signal. And continuously optimize the mobile phone, in the continuous improvement of the frequency band and advanced technology, it can still control the production cost, volume, and improve battery life.

    Last month Qualcomm announced that it is developing a new architecture RF front-end product called the tunable 5G RF front end. It has a dedicated controller, a complete system from the modem to the antenna, making the RF front end "intelligent" and can be tuned to tune 4G and 5G signals.

    At this cooperation summit, Qualcomm signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Lenovo, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi. The four companies expressed their intention to purchase RF front-end components worth more than US$2 billion from Qualcomm within three years. The obligation to purchase and supply such components will be implemented in accordance with the subsequent final agreement. OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi also said that they plan to use Qualcomm RF front-end components in 33% of mobile phones in the next three years.

    Qualcomm President Christiano Amon said: “Qualcomm has always supported China's mobile ecosystem. Today, my memorandum of understanding with Lenovo, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi further demonstrates the commitment to this ecosystem. And its strategy to re-expand our RF front-end business. Our robust RF front-end solutions can help these OEMs not only scale up energy-efficient terminals in a cost-effective manner, but also guarantee consumers in China and around the world. Advanced mobile terminal."