Huawei Kirin 970 and Rohde & Schwarz Demonstrate 1.2 Gigabit

Rohde & Schwarz has successfully tested and verified 1.2Gbps LTE A-Pro download speed with Huawei’s new Kirin 970 smartphone SoC

[Shenzhen, China, Sep 14, 2017] Huawei and Rohde & Schwarz today announced the successful demonstration of 1.2Gbps LTE-A-Pro downlink throughput, using Huawei’s Kirin 970 SoC, the industry’s first smartphone SoC to support Category 18(1.2Gbps).

In the R&S and Huawei lab, the 1.2 Gbps download speeds were achieved by using the combination of up to three downlink FDD carriers on which carriers can be received separately on four transmission layers (4x4 MIMO), and 256 QAM data modulation. 3GPP 4x4 MIMO (multiple in, multiple out) mandates four receive antennas on the device side, thus four RF connections are needed. These are provided by the 4x4 MIMO functionality of the R&S CMW500 wideband radio communication tester.

"We are pleased that Huawei has completed the test with R&S and witnessed together this performance breakthrough in the smartphone industry,” said Ai Wei, Huawei Fellow. “The Kirin 970 has become the first SoC to support LTE Cat.18 DL and Cat.13 UL connectivity with a peak downlink speed at 1.2Gbps. A new milestone has been achieved to show that Huawei’s Kirin SoC is once again in a leading position in the LTE-A-pro wireless communication industry.”

As mobile Internet is driving industry growth, operators worldwide are utilizing their spectrum resources to provide the best user experience possible. The Kirin 970 can support 4x4MIMO, 5CC CA, 256QAM and other advanced technologies taking consumers to the stunning Gbps-level of high speed wireless networks.

Featuring built-in AI acceleration, the Kirin 970 is Huawei’s first mobile AI computing platform able to provide innovative features such as image recognition, voice interactions and intelligent camera applications. With the industry’s leading wireless communication capability, the Kirin 970 is expected to create a fresh mobile AI experience for consumers.

“Both Huawei and Rohde & Schwarz are industry leaders in promoting the evolution of LTE-A-Pro technology and we are delighted to be working together to achieve this new milestone,” said Anton Messmer, Vice President Mobile Radio Testers at Rohde & Schwarz. “The R&S CMW500 is the ultimate test platform to simulate and verify the combination of signaling and end-to-end data transmission on the involved carriers, regardless of the 3GPP defined band configuration to be tested. For testing LTE in unlicensed spectrum configurations, the downlink carriers could even be set up in the 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum. ”

The R&S CMW500 in its R&S CMWflexx configuration is the first test platform that offers a downlink carrier aggregation solution for up to 5CC 4x4 MIMO, for protocol, RF and data performance verifications up to 2 Gbps throughput.