Samsung Electronics recently announced it developed Exynos Modem 5100, the industry’s first 5G modem.

The 5G modem from Samsung is compatible with 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 15 (Rel.15) specification for 5G New Radio (5G-NR).

The new 5G modem — built on 10-nanometer (nm) process technology — supports legacy radio access technologies designed into a single chip.

“Samsung’s leadership in communication technologies and knowledge allowed us to develop the industry’s first 5G modem, the Exynos Modem 5100, which fully complies with the latest 3GPP standards,” said Inyup Kang, president and head of System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung, which competes with Qualcomm, Intel, among others, conducted an over-the-air (OTA) 5G-NR data call test under a wireless environment utilizing a 5G base station and 5G end-user equipment prototype embedded with Exynos Modem 5100.

Exynos Modem 5100 supports both sub-6GHz and mmWave spectrums specified in 3GPP’s 5G standard as well as legacy networks, including 2G GSM/CDMA, 3G WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, and 4G LTE, with a single chip solution.

The modem delivers a maximum downlink speed of up to 2-gigabits per second (Gbps) in 5G’s sub-6-gigahertz (GHz) settings and 6Gbps in mmWave settings, which are about 1.7 and five times the data transfer speeds of its predecessor respectively.

Fast and stable data communication can also be secured in 4G networks with the downlink speed of 1.6Gbps.

Exynos Modem 5100 is also offered with radio frequency IC (RFIC), Envelope Tracking (ET) and power management IC (PMIC) solutions, and will be available to customers by the end of 2018.