1. Development Trends of 5G Technology
Behind the faster speeds, lower latency, greater capacity, and higher reliability of 5G technology lies a suite of entirely new technologies, such as millimeter wave, massive MIMO, and adaptive beamforming, all of which will require a significant number of more advanced base stations and customer equipment. With the widespread adoption of Sub-6GHz, the most substantial changes in future 5G will be the adoption of millimeter wave transmission and adaptive beamforming, which requires a large number of antenna elements. Using these frequencies in cellular topologies is challenging and uncharted territory, as each cell in a cellular topology serves hundreds or thousands of mobile users, and multiple antennas will be integrated into advanced equipment packages. To research and test the new technologies behind 5G, the capabilities offered by 5G communication equipment must be far more advanced than previous generations. 5G test equipment requires operating bandwidths of 200 MHz or higher; 5G instruments should prioritize addressing issues at <6 GHz (7.125 GHz) before evolving towards millimeter wave test equipment. 5G testing equipment requires more channels and operates at higher frequencies than 4G equipment, with wider and more complex waveforms. At the same time, the instruments must be linear and able to efficiently cover a wide frequency range. The introduction of massive MIMO and beamforming technologies makes wireless testing more complex.
5G test equipment suppliers will face the need to increase capabilities and reduce costs. Therefore, 5G test products will be far more complex than previous products. Looking beyond individual components, chipsets and system solutions can help manufacturers achieve more performance within limited space and lower costs—some of which are particularly needed for modular instruments. At the same time, this high level of integration, along with the higher signal chain counts required for MIMO and beamforming, places greater demands on power consumption. Partnering with suppliers like Analog Devices (ADI), which have the broadest product portfolio, allows for better design of components into complete signal chain solutions to meet the demanding performance, power consumption, space, and time-to-market requirements of future instruments.
2 ADI's 5G Testing Solution
For a long time, ADI has been working on network infrastructure, accumulating a wealth of core technologies from basic unit devices to high-performance components, and building a wide range of end-to-end solutions, all of which are helpful in addressing the challenges of 5G test and measurement. ADI can provide a variety of products from DC to millimeter-wave bands to meet the needs of communication test equipment (as shown in Table 1).
ADI's high-speed converters deliver the performance required for wide-bandwidth transmit and receive channels in the latest technologies. High-performance PLLs, quadrature modulators and demodulators, wideband mixers, wideband switches, and attenuators all offer outstanding performance, supporting high-performance communication test solutions. ADI offers a complete range of transceivers, data converters, and RF components, providing customers with all the necessary signal chain elements.
ADI has the following advantages in 5G test equipment: ① excellent product performance and a wide range of product solutions, with proven reliability; ② in-depth understanding of customer needs, providing design resources such as system solutions, thesis designs, and application notes.
(This article is from the June 2021 issue of Electronics World magazine.)
