But here’s the problem: millimeter wave signals are extremely challenging to work with. They behave erratically, bouncing off of hard surfaces, including people. And they get blocked by any obstacle in their path. Even putting your hand in front of the antenna will block the signal.

Given they are so challenging, mmWave technology requires an array of antennas — multiple elements working together to focus the energy of the signals into beams, which extend their range. That solution works well, but those arrays of antenna elements were too large to integrate in a smartphone. The mobile use case itself is challenging, and making mmWave viable in mobile devices required drastically shrinking the components enough to fit in a handset. With good reason, a lot of experts in the wireless industry concluded that mmWave wouldn’t work with mobile wireless networks, only in fixed wireless applications — where a mmWave 5G connection would replace cable internet or a fiber optic connection to the home.

Well, if there’s one thing our engineers love, it’s creating breakthrough technologies in the face of seemingly impossible challenges. Plenty of experts rejected CDMA in Qualcomm’s early days too, and it went on to become the foundational technology of the mobile internet revolution started in the 3G era.

In that spirit, I’m extremely proud and excited to announce the Qualcomm QTM052 mmWave antenna module family, one of the key components that will make superfast 5G smartphones and networks finally arrive for consumers.