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Qualcomm to Supply 5G Base Station Chips to SpaceX

What happened

Qualcomm said on Nov. 4 local time that it had signed a long-term supply agreement with SpaceX to provide its Dragonwing QRU100 radio unit platform, QDU100 distributed unit platform and base station signal processing software for tens of thousands of Starlink Mobile 5G base stations that SpaceX plans to deploy across the United States starting in 2027. Starlink Mobile is a telecommunications service that integrates Starlink's satellite network with terrestrial networks in the United States, and Qualcomm's platforms will be deployed in the terrestrial base stations; the base stations use massive multiple-input multiple-output (Massive MIMO) radio units with a 64T64R configuration, featuring 64 transmit and 64 receive paths, with the Dragonwing QRU100 platform handling the radio functions via a highly integrated processor and the Dragonwing QDU100 platform handling latency-sensitive baseband signal processing at the physical layer. Qualcomm said both the QRU100 and QDU100 improve performance per watt, enhancing the economics of large-scale base station deployments and reducing total cost of ownership (TCO). Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said during the company's earnings call that the project would be 'one of the largest network deployments,' adding that revenue recognition will begin toward the end of fiscal 2027, with meaningful revenue expected starting in fiscal 2028; SpaceX's deployment itself remains a plan scheduled to start in 2027.