Quectel EC20 Cellular Modem is a series of LTE Cat 4 IoT modules in an LCC form factor.
The Quectel EC20 is a series of LTE Category 4 modules designed for industrial M2M (Machine-to-Machine) and IoT (Internet of Things) applications. It is a popular choice due to its compact size, high performance, and wide range of features.
The EC20 delivers max downlink rates of 150Mbps and uplink rates of 50Mbps.
It is very popular cellular Modem, I have used it in various customer projects where internet connectivity was required.
The modem is built on Qualcomm Processor MDM9607 (The Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X5 LTE Modem)
It was the mobile industry’s first to implement 4G LTE Advanced carrier aggregation, achieving an LTE Category 4 peak download data rates of up to 150Mbps by aggregation of two 10MHz LTE.
and it uses ESMT FM6BD1G1GMB Flash (1Gbit NAND) and DRAM (1Gbit DDR2) PIP package Memory combo.
There are four other chips also used on the modem, one is WTR2965 this is a network IC but I was not able to find the datasheet.
There another IC which is PMD9607, looking at the components around it, the inductors and capacitors, looks like a DC DC converter IC with multiple output so it should be a PMIC.
There are two more ICs which are worth mentioning VC7645 and VC7912-61. These are located in the RF section so probably these are RF Switch/ Amplifiers /Transmitter/ Receiver. Finding datasheet for these old ICs is a challenge 🙂
It was a quick teardown of Quectel EC20 Cellular Modem, hope you enjoyed it.
I am currently working as an embedded systems design consultant and helping companies build custom embedded products, develop test automation solution for their PCB.
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