Kirin 970 Is The First Mobile SoC That Supports Cat. 18 LTE Huawei’s Kirin 970 processor attained maximum data speeds of 1.2Gbps in a test conducted with the equipment supplier Rohde & Schwarz (R&S). This makes the Kirin 970 as the first smartphone chipset to formally support Category 18 LTE. In contrast, Qualcomm’s current flagship product, the Snapdragon 835, supports Category 16 downlink LTE, and can achieve maximum download speeds of 1Gbps. In order to reach the record download speeds, the two companies used three FDD carriers, 4×4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennas, and 256-QAM modulation. The use of 4×4 MIMO antennas boosts data speeds by allowing both the device and the base station to transmit and receive more data streams simultaneously, while the 256-QAM modulation increases the number of bits delivered over a single transmission. Given that the Kirin 970 is capable of aggregating up to 5 LTE downlink carriers, phones equipped with ...