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Qualcomm's NewMore
X60 Modem Provides Glimpse of 2021's 5G
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Phones
The new Qualcomm X60 modem could start appearing in phones toward the end of this year, and it will come
along with or be part of the Snapdragon 875, or whatever Qualcomm's 2021 integrated chipset is called.

By Sascha Segan
February 18, 2020

It looks like the Samsung Galaxy S20 will be a pretty safe purchase for 5G aficionados this year. Qualcomm
today announced its third-generation X60 5G modem, and while 2021's phones will feature better ways to
combine different lanes of 5G spectrum, the X60 doesn't have the massive jump in coverage and capabilities
we saw between the X50 and X55.

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The new Qualcomm X60 modem could start appearing in phones toward the end of this year—it's already
too late for this September's Apple iPhone lineup—and it will come along with or be part of the Snapdragon
875, or whatever Qualcomm's 2021 integrated chipset is called. For most of us, the announcement is more
of a signal about what 5G features are coming up over the next two years.

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There is one part of the announcement that could be critical for 5G phone design next year, and it isn't the
modem: it's Qualcomm's QTM535 antenna module. The QTM535 is the next generation of the little antenna
patch needed to support millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G in phones. Qualcomm says it will support "new,
premium, sleek phone designs" and have "improved mmWave performance," both of which phone makers
are saying they need.

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Recent rumors about Apple's upcoming iPhones, which will feature Qualcomm modems, have Apple
complaining about the size of the existing QTM525 modules, using that as a reason to potentially work with
other antennas.

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Qualcomm isn't giving exact details of how small the QTM535 is or how much range it can extract from
mmWave towers, citing competitive concerns. The QTM535 also won't appear in this year's iPhones, as
Qualcomm confirmed it will start appearing in phones in "early 2021."

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Qualcomm has competition in terms of 5G modems—Samsung, Huawei, and MediaTek all have products in
production—but nobody has yet released a phone with a non-Qualcomm mmWave antenna module.

How 5G Will Roll in 2021

The X60 is a 5nm modem, which Qualcomm says promises lower heat and better power efficiency. That's
always helpful; the first mainstream phones with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X55 modem, the Samsung
Galaxy S20 line, have very large batteries, which suggests the X55 may still consume a bit of power in 5G
mode. (Qualcomm refused to say just how much less power the X60 would consume.)

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Most of the X60's new features are about combining bands of spectrum in ways that the X55 can't do. The
X60 can combine 5G between millimeter wave and sub-6 bands (the X55 can only use one of those
categories at a time) and can aggregate between FDD and TDD sub-6 5G bands (ditto.)

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Over the next two years, those features won't be that important. Most carriers will be focused primarily on
mmWave or sub-6 5G, and most older sub-6 bands will still be 4G. The X60's features really come into play
in 2022-23, as carriers start to shift more older frequency bands from 4G over to 5G as more people have
5G phones, and carriers in more countries deploy mmWave.

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In the US, the X60 would let New T-Mobile subscribers use old mid-band Sprint spectrum at the same time
as they use T-Mobile's millimeter-wave spectrum in key cities, hoisting potential 5G speeds from around
300Mbps to more than double that. This will help New T-Mobile achieve some promises it has made for
2024, but they're for 2024.

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RELATED
Qualcomm President: We're Driving Hard Toward the 5G iPhone

Inside Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865, Which Turns Everything 5G

Why Qualcomm's President Is Optimistic About the 5G Transition

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The X60 also supports voice over NR; anything lower needs to make voice calls over 4G or 3G. In the US,
that is about a later endgame where carriers start flipping entire low frequency bands over to 5G rather than
maintaining some 4G service in them. In the US, that's unlikely to happen for consumers before 2024.

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But voice-over-NR allows for brand-new, standalone 5G carriers to crop up worldwide, potentially disrupting
markets with new forms of service. Once again, that's unlikely to happen in the US, but I'd look at how Jio
blew up the Indian market with a new 4G carrier as an example of what could happen elsewhere with 5G.

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The X60 also has all of the X55's features, including being a 2G-to-5G modem that supports older networks,
and supporting both the existing "non-standalone" 5G networks that rely on 4G anchors as well as future,
standalone 5G networks.

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We'll hear more about the X60 over the course of this year, but for now, 2020 belongs to the X55—and
whatever Apple brings to market.

Further Reading
Good Luck Finding the iPhone 11 in New York City

Pixel 4a: Here's an Early Prototype of Google's Next Phone

Google Messages Preparing iMessage-Like Reaction 'Fallback' Texts

Galaxy S20 Ultra Tops 1Gbps on AT&T 5G+

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About Sascha Segan

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed more than 1,100 smartphones, tablets and other

gadgets in more than 15 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks projects in the US and

Canada, runs our Race to 5G tracker, and writes opinions on tech and society. Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel

writer. Other than his home town of New York, his favorite cities are Barcelona and Hong Kong. While he's a fourth-
generation Manhattanite, he now lives in Queens with his wife and daughter.

Read the latest from Sascha Segan

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