Chip manufacturing giant Qualcomm recently announced that it has entered into a major partnership with SpaceX, supplying the latter with its Dragonwing Cellular Infrastructure System. This will then be recognized as Starlink Mobile’s future nationwide terrestrial 5G network in the United States.
Under the agreement, SpaceX will deploy multiple Qualcomm-powered sites over several years, with the rollout scheduled to begin in 2027.
Starlink Mobile will then use Massive MIMO radio units with 64 transmit and 64 receive paths (64T64R). This essentially allows Starlink’s network to maximize spectral efficiency, expand coverage and handle high volumes of cellular traffic.
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The QRU100 will handle the intensive processing demands of the Massive MIMO units, while the QDU100 handles the latency-sensitive Layer 1 baseband processing. Durga Malladi, EVP & GM for Technology Planning, Edge Solutions, and Data Center at Qualcomm commented:
Building a national network requires high performance and power efficiency at each site. Dragonwing Cellular Infrastructure platforms bring together advanced Massive MIMO, purpose-built processing and commercial-grade Layer 1 software to help Starlink deliver an outstanding national network… Together with SpaceX, we are building world-leading cellular infrastructure in the US, advancing 5G today, with an opportunity to lay the foundation for AI-native 6G.