AUSTIN, TX – Many smartphone manufacturers are offering 5G handsets in a bid to increase mobile phone sales, says TechSearch International. Several 5G-compatible smartphones are in mass production, and more are scheduled for release this year.

Smartphone sales have stagnated, so OEMs and carriers are pushing 5G development and deployment, with the hope customers will be enticed to upgrade their phones, according to the firm. These early 5G phones are primarily designed to enhance 4G LTE by adding sub-6GHz frequency spectrum. Support for the millimeter-wave version of 5G, which many consider to be the “true” 5G, is limited, as rollout of the technology is still in its infancy.

TechSearch has spotted important trends for the packaging industry, including more chips and packages in 5G handsets than 4G phones. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G has almost 2x more packages than the S10/S10+ for the RF frontend and baseband functions, and that is just to support sub-6GHz 5G connectivity. Additional RFFE packages are required for mmWave 5G.

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