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[数码手机] Teardowns reveal Qualcomm 5G chips beat Huawei’s on size and efficiency

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1^# 大中小发表于 2019-8-15 01:24 只看该作者

https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/12/teardowns-reveal-qualcomm-5g-chips-beat-huaweis-on-size-and-efficiency/
Teardowns reveal Qualcomm 5G chips beat Huawei’s on size and efficiency
JEREMY HORWITZ@HORWITZ AUGUST 12, 2019 8:00 AM

Image Credit: IHS Markit

While an iFixit teardown of Huawei’s Mate 20X suggested that the company’s first 5G smartphone was using fairly large, hot-running components to compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, the engineering differences between the 5G rivals are now becoming clearer thanks to teardowns performed by IHS Markit. In a report released today, the research firm says it made some interesting discoveries after disassembling six early 5G smartphones: Based on chip size, system design, and memory, Huawei rushed an comparatively inefficient solution to market, resulting in a device that’s larger, more expensive, and less energy efficient than it could have been.

Huawei made a fairly big deal about its use of self-made processors in its 5G phones, noting that it was including both a Kirin 980 system-on-chip and a Balong 5000 5G modem, the latter billed as the first commercial multimode 5G/4G/3G/2G chip. In theory, that modem should have given the Mate 20X an advantage over devices with early Snapdragon chips, but as IHS notes, the Kirin 980 has its own 4G/3G/2G modem inside, which wound up “unused and unnecessary” inside the phone, increasing its cost, battery usage, and PCB footprint.

The space savings from a smaller SoC wouldn’t have been trivial, and was compounded by related component inefficiencies: a Huawei modem die size 50% larger than Qualcomm’s first-generation X50 modem, a “surprisingly large” 3GB of supporting memory just for the modem, and a lack of support for millimeter wave 5G networks. By comparison, IHS principal analyst Wayne Lam told VentureBeat, Samsung’s Exynos 5100 modem die size is “almost exactly the same as the X50.” The report describes Huawei’s design choices as “far from ideal,” noting that they’re “highlighting the challenges of early 5G technology.”

Despite those issues, IHS noted that Huawei’s reliance on one 5G/4G/3G/2G modem rather than two separate 5G and 4G/3G/2G modems is the way forward, as it enables convergence of both the modem and related parts such as radio-tuning RF front ends and radio antennas. The Mate 20X has separate 4G and 5G radio tuners, but over time, those parts will become more integrated as well, resulting in greater power efficiency. Qualcomm is expected to be the only real alternative for carriers and OEMs interested in supporting millimeter wave 5G, as it’s already offering complete modem-to-antenna designs; its only multi-vendor rival, MediaTek, has focused on non-millimeter wave parts.

IHS expects that the next step — integration of 5G/4G/3G/2G multimode modems directly inside smartphone SoC processors — will take place in 2020, eliminating the need for a separate modem while “significantly” cutting related component costs by eliminating the need for separate modem RAM and power management chips. MediaTek has already announced such a chip for 2020 devices as the 5G SoC, minus millimeter wave, but competitors will likely include a more integrated RF front end with full support for both millimeter wave and sub-6GHz 5G, enabling “better, cheaper, and faster 5G smartphones” to come to market over the next year.

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2^# 大中小发表于 2019-8-15 01:26 只看该作者

https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/ ... needs-big-heatsink/
Huawei’s first 5G phone reportedly guzzles power, needs big heatsink

JEREMY HORWITZ@HORWITZ JULY 30, 2018 7:24 AM
An Auras Technology copper heatsink for smartphones.
Above: An Auras Technology copper heatsink for smartphones.

Few companies have designed their own 5G wireless chips, and even fewer are producing both chips and the handsets that will use them. That’s why a new DigiTimes report on China’s Huawei is raising red flags this morning: Huawei’s first 5G phone will draw much more power than 4G phones and will apparently require a premium copper cooling module to dissipate heat.

According to the report, Huawei’s rotating CEO, Eric Xu, confirmed that the company’s 5G chips will consume 2.5 times the power of current 4G chips. Though Xu suggests this is a tradeoff for better performance than existing chips offer, it means that Huawei’s initial 5G phones will require larger batteries and atypical cooling solutions. Xu said that further research and development will be needed to improve the 5G chip’s heat dissipation and power-saving technologies.

To solve the heat dissipation issue for its first 5G phone, Huawei will reportedly use premium cooling modules from Auras Technology. The modules are said to be 0.4mm-thick sheets of copper, a fairly expensive component previously used in high-end slim laptops. Though Auras has used the modules in certain smartphones for two years, much less expensive graphite is more commonly used for smartphone cooling.

Auras will reportedly start volume production of the copper cooling modules in September, well ahead of the release of Huawei’s phone, which is now apparently expected to ship in June 2019. That’s months after competing 5G phones are expected to ship with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 modems, but likely before 5G devices using Intel XMM 8000 5G modems.

The sizes and shapes of early 5G mobile devices remain uncertain, as no company has shown a finalized 5G smartphone housing. While Qualcomm has recently announced impressively small 5G components, Intel has shown only large 5G device prototypes. Samsung is working on an Exynos 5G chipset for multiple 5G devices but has yet to reveal what its 5G smartphones will look like.