The upcoming Snapdragon 820 is shaping up to be a formidable SoC after the disappointing response to the previous flagship, the Snapdragon 810, which was in far fewer devices than expected for reasons still shrouded in mystery and speculation. One of the biggest aspects of the upcoming 820 is Qualcomm’s new X12 modem, which will provide the most advanced LTE connectivity seen to date when the SoC launches. The X12 features CAT 12 LTE downlink speeds for up to 600 Mbps, and CAT 13 on the uplink for up to 150 Mbps.

LTE connectivity isn’t the only new thing here, as we see from this slide there is also tri-band Wi-Fi supporting 2×2 MU-MIMO.

“This is the first publicly announced processor for use in mobile devices to support LTE Category 12 in the downlink and Category 13 in the uplink, providing up to 33 percent and 200 percent improvement over its predecessor’s download and upload speeds, respectively.”

The specifications for this new modem are densely packed:

  • Cat 12 (up to 600 Mbps) in the downlink
  • Cat 13 (up to 150 Mbps) in the uplink
  • Up to 4×4 MIMO on one downlink LTE carrier
  • 2×2 MU-MIMO (802.11ac)
  • Multi-gigabit 802.11ad
  • LTE-U and LTE+Wi-Fi Link Aggregation (LWA)
  • Next Gen HD Voice and Video calling over LTE and Wi-Fi
  • Call Continuity across Wi-Fi, LTE, 3G, and 2G
  • RF front end innovations
  • Advanced Closed Loop Antenna Tuner
  • Qualcomm RF360™ front end solution with CA
  • Wi-Fi/LTE antenna sharing

Rumored phones that could end up running the Snapdragon 820 with this X12 modem include the Samsung Galaxy S7 and around 30 other devices, though final word is of course pending on shipping hardware.