Qualcomm completes 5G-A high and low frequency NR-CA end-to-end verification

China Mobile Research Institute, ZTE Corporation and Qualcomm Technologies have recently cooperated to verify the 5G Advanced high- and low-frequency multi-carrier aggregation solution, and successfully demonstrated the high-speed experience under the new NR-CA combination.

This verification utilized the 800MHz bandwidth of the ultra-high frequency band and the 100MHz bandwidth of the 2.6GHz low frequency band for carrier aggregation, and for the first time adopted the 1024QAM high-order modulation method, achieving a new breakthrough in the single-user downlink peak rate of 9Gbps.The three parties jointly achieved end-to-end NR-CA technology verification, using a smartphone form factor terminal equipped with a Snapdragon X80 5G modem and RF system, and ZTE’s high-performance, ultra-large bandwidth millimeter wave AAU equipment.

It is understood that the Snapdragon X80 5G modem is the seventh-generation 5G modem launched by Qualcomm in February this year, integrating a dedicated 5G AI processor and 5G Advanced-ready architecture.

It achieves many firsts, including the first integrated NB-NTN satellite communications in a 5G modem, the first support for 6Rx for smartphones, the first downlink six-carrier aggregation, and the first support for AI-enabled mmWave extended-range communications for fixed wireless access customer premises equipment (CPE).