One of the latest 5G milestones was announced recently by Qualcomm Technologies Inc. and Ericsson. Together, they completed key interoperability tests for 5G carrier aggregation across both FDD/TDD and TDD/TDD bands, which is critical to 5G’s performance, capacity, and coverage. “5G carrier aggregation allows operators to use multiple sub-6-GHz spectrum channels simultaneously to transfer data between base stations and 5G mobile devices,” according to the partners. The translation for users: smoother video streaming and faster downloads. This capability is expected to be deployed by early 2021.
Why is 5G the next big thing? Francis Sideco, senior analyst at TIRIAS Research, makes a very good case when he said that 5G is good for absolutely everything. But he admits that it comes with one big challenge: supporting all three primary use cases — enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive IoT deployments, and mission-critical applications — that have disparate and conflicting requirements with a single network architecture. Understanding the different channel structure and control plane requirements to support a wide variety of spectrum and use cases with the same architecture makes it clear that RF band support is only part of the issue, he said.
Despite these challenges, Sideco said that 5G is ready to deliver on its promise, with Phase 1 in commercial ramp and Phase 2 finalized. He believes there might actually already be a killer app that brings all of the new capabilities together.
One potentially huge use case is automotive. By bringing cellular connectivity into the car (cellular vehicle-to-everything, or C-V2X), 5G will increase the safety of road traffic and open the door for the next level of fully autonomous driving through connected car use cases, said Leo Gergs, research analyst at ABI Research. He said there are three key capabilities that fifth-generation cellular connectivity will bring to cars to enhance safety and security on the road. But it is going to take a few things first to realize these benefits.
What’s going to help speed adoption? New 5G chips. Qualcomm, along with other leaders in 5G technologies, including MediaTek and Samsung, have already introduced new silicon chips to support 5G capabilities, including 5G carrier aggregation, for smartphones and other mobile devices. Premium 5G smartphones will be powered by these new chips that deliver improved performance around processing, connectivity, and power efficiency, targeting better gaming and streaming experiences. They also deliver advanced artificial intelligence support.
These advances in 5G technologies also raise several technical challenges, including power efficiency, to ensure higher transmission rates with very low latency. RF architectures need to be scalable, efficient, and extremely compact, and 5G will require densification not only at the macro level with the installation of more base stations but also high power density at the device level, said Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio, editor-in-chief of Power Electronics News. He believes the answer to the challenges are high-performance power and compound semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN), silicon carbide (SiC), and gallium arsenide (GaAs), each with their own benefits.
There is also a great need for design verification and testing. The increased 5G complexity, driven by many applications and use cases, is exacerbated by a plethora of equipment configurations, creating a situation that requires much more extensive testing than 4G does, said Mentor. This includes larger functional verification suites that embrace most modern verification techniques, expanded analyses, and pre- and post-silicon testing.
Cover image: Shutterstock
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