Earlier this year, Samsung had unveiled the Exynos 8895 chipset with an integrated Cat.16 LTE modem (and 5CA) and download speeds of up to 1Gbps. Now, the South Korean smartphone giant has announced that it has developed a new LTE modem that employs 6CA (Carrier Aggregation) technology to support download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps for the first time in the industry.

Samsung has worked closely with Anritsu, a Japanese telecommunication measuring instrument provider, to achieve download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps using its new Cat.18 LTE modem with industry’s first 6CA support. This 20 percent improvement in download speeds would allow smartphone users to download full-length HD movies in just 10 seconds or enjoy buffer-less video calls and mobile live-broadcasting.

Carrier aggregation combines multiple component carriers with various bandwidths, thereby improving data transfer rates. Compared to the previous generation modem’s 5CA technology, the new 6CA technology offers more consistent and reliable data transfer. Moreover, the company has also equipped its new LTE modem with 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) schemes to maximize the data transfer.

“With the increase of high-quality online content services, the demand for high-performance LTE modems continue to rise as well. The 1.2Gbps maximum downlink speed with 6CA support highlights Samsung’s leading design capabilities and well-positions Samsung for the upcoming 5G era,” said Woonhaing Hur, Vice President of System LSI Protocol Development at Samsung Electronics.

A new Exynos chipset equipped with 6CA LTE modem is expected to be in mass production by the end of this year. It is being rumored that the new chipset will be named Exynos 9810 and that it will debut with the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+ early next year. The Galaxy Note 8, which will be unveiled on August 23, will continue using the already proven Exynos 8895. Samsung is also working on two new 10nm Exynos chipsets: Exynos 7885 and Exynos 9610.