Mass production of Snow Ridge expected in the second half of this year
| Intel FPGA PAC N3000 to be Delivered in Q3
| Openness, Intel's Open Source Reference Software

Intel announced new products at MWC19, which is being held in Barcelona, Spain for four days from the 25th to the 28th.
At the same time, through partnerships and innovative customer use cases, it demonstrated how cloud, device, and edge computing accelerate network transformation and the full potential of 5G.

Customers such as AT&T, Ericsson, Nokia, Rakuten, Sony, and Warner Bros. emphasize how they can innovate and expand their businesses through the ability to move, store, and process large-scale data quickly and efficiently.

Intel is unveiling new products custom-developed in a differentiated way to enhance computing capabilities at the edge, as well as plans to further advance network technology innovation together with the industry. In addition, a customer case of early adoption of 'Snow Ridge,' a 10nm SoC for base stations, will also be announced.
Sandra Rivera, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Network Platform Group, stated, “As the cloud accelerates network transformation and computing at the edge drives innovation, opportunities for 5G are expanding infinitely,” adding, “Intel aims to provide new products and innovations to accelerate the adoption of 5G and support customers and partners in growing their businesses.”


5G base stations becoming smarter
No area receives as much industry attention as the network edge, particularly in the domains of base station computing and Radio Access Network (RAN). Snow Ridge, first unveiled at CES 2019, is Intel's 10nm SoC technology for wireless base stations, and Intel announced on the 25th (local time) that Ericsson is adopting Intel's next-generation Snow Ridge silicon into its 5G base station product line.

Ericsson believes that it must apply Snow Ridge to its 5G products to provide its differentiated 5G solutions. Ericsson plans to leverage Snow Ridge in conjunction with its in-house silicon to deliver leading RAN Compute solutions. Mass production of Snow Ridge is expected to take place in the second half of this year.


Extending cloud architecture to network core and edge
Intel has developed a solution for service providers looking to transition their networks to 5G.
With Cascade Lake from the Intel Xeon Scalable platform family, mobile service providers can seize new cloud and network opportunities and optimize data center, core, and edge environments. It is also expected to support meeting the growing demand for computing, AI, and storage. Further details will be revealed at the time of release.


Power and speed improvements for the edge
For global infrastructure providers and telecommunications companies looking to build cloud-based network solutions, the network edge, along with cloud and wireless access, is the critical point of innovation.
Intel is introducing new products and open-source software innovations in collaboration with the industry. Intel has launched the Intel FPGA Programmable Acceleration Card N3000 (Intel FPGA PAC N3000), designed to accelerate virtualized network functions ranging from 5G RAN to core network applications. Customers Rakuten and Affirmed Networks are currently sampling the product for delivery in the third quarter of 2019.

Intel also unveiled for the first time the codename 'Hewitt Lake,' a product in the 'Intel Xeon D' family scheduled for release. Hewitt Lake provides power-efficient SoC configurations custom-developed for superior computing at the edge and for security and storage solutions that are typically constrained by power and space.

The 'Open Network Edge Services Software (OpenNESS)' toolkit was developed to promote open collaboration and application innovation at the network and enterprise edge.

'OpenNESS' is open source reference software created by Intel to support the ecosystem so that Intel can create and introduce new edge applications and services. It further simplifies network complexity for developers and supports the secure launch of edge services.

Openness encourages cloud and IoT developers to develop new 5G and edge use cases and services by enabling them to interact more easily with the global ecosystem of hardware, software, and solution integrators.


Intel Modem Accelerating 5G
Intel's 5G modem strategy aims to play a key role in accelerating 5G adoption.

Intel announced a collaboration with SkyWorks to optimize multimode 5G RF solutions for the Intel XMM 8160 5G modem.
The XMM 8160 platform is highly scalable and supports 2G, 3G, CDMA, TDSCDMA, LTE, 5G, and GNSS, covering the mobile, automotive, wearable, mobile infrastructure, and IoT markets, targeting all layers and market verticals.

This platform, including the RF front end, is scheduled to be provided to select customers for product certification purposes in the fourth quarter of 2019. Full-scale sales are scheduled for the first quarter of 2020.

In addition, Fibocom, a cellular M.2 module manufacturer, announced the strengthening of its product portfolio and the integration of the Intel XMM 8160 5G modem. Supporting this announcement, gateway manufacturers D-Link, Arcadyan, Gemtek, and VVDN announced plans to adopt Intel's XMM 7560 Gigabit LTE modem for their gateway solutions, while simultaneously upgrading to switch to the Intel XMM 8160 5G modem in early 2020.