In this vignette of The 5G Factor, Ron Westfall and Todd Weiss examine why the expansion of vRAN collaboration between Samsung and Intel, consisting of the integration of Samsung’s vRAN 3.0 software with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors plus Intel vRAN Boost, augments Samsung’s overall vRAN proposition.
The discussion highlighted:
Samsung and Intel Expand vRAN Collaboration
Samsung is expanding its collaboration with Intel through their new product innovation agreement, allowing the companies to continue developing vRAN for enhanced performance and capacity. Samsung will integrate its vRAN 3.0 software with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors plus Intel vRAN Boost to advance its vRAN solutions. Offering increased capacity, Samsung’s enhanced vRAN can now support more cells with the same number of servers, which would provide power savings and cost efficiency gains, augmented by improved automation, to CSPs. We assess the market impact of Samsung’s latest vRAN 3.0 portfolio developments, including 200MHz 3-Cell support for 64T64R Massive MIMO radios.
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Transcript:
Ron Westfall: What do you see that the vRAN suppliers looking at them now are doing to advance these vRAN capabilities, Todd?
Todd R. Weiss: Well again, Ron, there’s a lot of stuff going on. Samsung, one of the biggest players out there in mobile, is expanding its collaboration with Intel, which is a big deal. These are two major companies working together through a new product innovation agreement, allowing the companies together to continue advancing vRAN for enhanced performance and capacity. When these two companies do something together, it’s going to make the needle move. As part of their expanded collaboration, Samsung’s going to integrate its vRAN 3 software with 4th Gen Intel Xeon scalable processors that have that Intel vRAN Boost, to deliver advanced vRAN products offering increased capacity. Samsung’s enhanced vRAN will be able to support more cells with the same number of servers, which is critical, which would bring the benefits of power savings and cost efficiency to network operators. This is a really big deal for them.
And along with the ecosystem partners, Samsung continues to deliver advanced virtualized network solutions powered by its latest vRAN 3.0 capabilities, such as its 200 megahertz three-cell support for T64R, massive MIMO radios, power-saving features and improved automation. All these things are really important in this space. This can pave the way for operators to deploy a more versatile RAN solution, and in addition to its enhanced features, Samsung’s vRAN also supports multiple radio access technology, which is also called Multi-RAN, across 2G, 4G and 5G, which is giving greater flexibility in network operation.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, those are all excellent points, Todd, and I’m impressed that you were able to accurately pinpoint the name of the antenna that Samsung is using. And this is all important. because in addition, Intel announced a strategic collaboration agreement with Ericsson to use Intel’s 18A process and manufacturing technology for Ericsson’s next generation optimized 5G infrastructure. Now as a part of this agreement, Intel will manufacture custom 5G SOCs, or system on chips for Ericsson to create their products for their future 5G infrastructures. Now additionally, the companies will expand their collaboration to optimize again 4th Gen Intel Xeon scale processors with the Intel vRAN Boost, for Ericsson’s cloud RAN proposition. Now this helps CSPs potentially, again, to increase their network capacity while gaining those very valuable energy efficiency gains, also gaining more scalability and flexibility in the process. Again, it’s an across the four benefits that are being delivered with these new capabilities.
Now in addition, I view the Ericsson alliance as signaling confidence in Intel’s 18A process and underscores the progress that Intel’s making with its five-nodes-in-four-years roadmap to regain process leadership. Now this is ambitious, and it’s something that really Intel had to do, but we’re seeing Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger delivering. And yes, the journey’s not complete but obviously Intel had dug itself into a bit of a hole when it came to process leadership. But this is I think showing clearly that there is validation across the ecosystem, certainly with a major player like Ericsson, that Intel is indeed executing on its plan.
Now I see 18A is Intel’s most advanced node on the company’s five-nodes-in-four-years roadmap. And after all it’s introducing Newgate all around transistor technology, also known as Ribbon Vet, and backside power delivery also branded Power BIA. And that first appeared in Intel 20A, or will, but Intel will now deliver the ribbon architecture innovation and increase performance along with continued metal line width reduction in 18A.
Now combined, these technologies could put Intel back in that process leadership position by 2025, potentially augmenting future offerings for its customers when they bring them to market. So again, we’re looking at a two-year span here before the jury can come back, so to speak. But again, this is exciting and it’s showing that execution is advancing.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
