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San Diego-based semiconductor design giant Qualcomm has announced a new line of chipsets and wireless modems for IoT devices. The new 9205 series of LTE modems will provide companies building IoT devices with a chip design that will enable various types of connectivity at a lower cost than prior generations.
Qualcomm is aiming its new chipset at a broad range of IoT applications, and its versatile hardware platform will likely further accelerate usage of IoT devices around the world.
Here are some of the key features of Qualcomm’s new 9205 LTE IoT modem:
- The new line of modems will support a broad range of LTE-based IoT communication standards. These include LTE CatM1, NB-IoT, and eGPRS, all of which are standards companies use for IoT devices, depending on their needs.
- Devices built according to the new modem's specification could be simpler to administer and cheaper to make. The 9205 modem will require up to 40% less material to build it, and will be about half the size of previous models — the whole chipset is smaller than a dime. That will send down the cost of manufacturing modems, which will reduce the price, allowing companies to build even smaller IoT devices for less money.
- Perhaps most importantly, the chipset will be more energy-efficient than its predecessors, improving either battery life or portability. Qualcomm’s new modem promises up to 70% lower power consumption, which will give device designers two useful options. They can keep device sizes generally the same and extend battery life — this for devices that can already function up to 10 years in the field — or take advantage of the smaller chipset and shrink devices down, increasing portability while maintaining the same battery life as the larger devices that came before.
Qualcomm’s new line of IoT modems is an iterative improvement upon its earlier products, but this type of iteration is exactly what's needed to push IoT into the mainstream of digital practice. Companies that provide cellular connectivity for IoT devices find that cost and coverage are the most pressing concerns their customers have, and Qualcomm’s 9205 modem can help them to address both of those worries.
Even though 5G is right around the corner, the next generation of cellular networks won’t fit every need — innovations like Qualcomm’s new chipset offer important bridges for such use cases, like asset tracking or remote monitoring, allowing companies to benefit from cutting edge technology in a way that makes sense.
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