Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 and 765G are first 5g socs with mmWave support

Qualcomm puts an integrated 5G modem in its Snapdragon 765 and 765G that supports frequencies below 6GHz and high mmWave frequencies. It is the first soc with an integrated 5G modem that can do this. Competitive SOCs only work with 5g at low frequencies.

Qualcomm is integrating its new Snapdragon X52 5g modem into the Snapdragon 765 and 765G. Those socs are intended for midrange smartphones. The G model is a variant with a slightly higher clocked cpu and gpu that, according to the manufacturer, performs 20 percent better, otherwise the socs are the same. They are made on a 7nm process.

The Snapdragon 765 has eight Kryo 475 cores, two of which are based on the Cortex-A76 design and six on Cortex-A55. The fastest core of the SD765 runs at 2.3GHz, with the 765G that is a maximum of 2.4GHz. The gpu is an Adreno 620 and the soc can be combined with up to 12GB of lpddr4x memory at 2133MHz. According to Qualcomm, the soc can drive displays with qhd+ resolutions at 60Hz and fhd+ resolutions at up to 120Hz.

Samsung, Huawei and MediaTek have previously announced socs with an integrated 5G modem, but they only support frequencies up to 6GHz. 5g at high frequencies, indicated by mmWave, was previously only possible with a separate modem. The high frequencies offer much faster speeds, but have a shorter range.

Smartphone manufacturers that make devices based on the Snapdragon 765 and 765G must also install a module with the antennas needed for 5G on the different frequencies. The antennas needed for 5g on frequencies up to 6GHz are the same as the antennas needed for 4g. It is likely that all upcoming smartphones with the Snapdragon 765-socs will therefore support 5g at low frequencies. mmWave support requires additional antennas and manufacturers may omit them.

The Snapdagon 865 must be combined with a separate 5G modem and RF module. The 765 has a built-in 5G modem, so only an RF module is needed.

The Snapdragon X52 modem in the Snapdragon 765 and 765G does support 5G on all frequencies, but only achieves a maximum of 3.7GBit/s download and 1.6GBit/s upload. That is less fast than the 7Gbit/s that the X55 modem achieves maximum. Qualcomm combines that modem with the Snapdragon 865; however, the modem is not integrated into the soc.

When using lte, or 4g, the X52 modem achieves a download speed of up to 1.6Gbit/s and an upload speed of up to 210Mbit/s. That is a big upgrade compared to the predecessors, the Snapdragon 730 reached a maximum of 800Mbit/s download. The first phone to arrive with the soc is the Oppo Reno3 Pro, which will be released in China in the coming weeks.