FuTURE Forum | 2019 5G Workshop on Mm-waves Technology Was Held in Guangzhou

2019 5G Workshop on Mm-waves Technology Was Held in Guangzhou

Seminar | 2019/5/14

The "5G Workshop on Mm-waves Technology" and "The 2nd Meeting for the Mm-waves Working Group in 2019" hosted by FuTURE Mobile Communication Forum were held at Hotel Nikko Guangzhou on May 9th, 2019.

Due to the demand of 5G for large bandwidth and high speed, mm-waves technology has become an important direction for 5G development. International telecom equipment manufacturers, terminal manufacturers and chip design companies have all increased their R & D investment in 5G mm-waves. However, the development of 5G high-frequency segment lags behind that of low-frequency segment (i.e., lower than 6GHz), the R & D progress of 5G silicon-based mm-waves chip lags behind that of low-frequency segment transceiver chip, and the industry is still in the stage of cooperative research with academia.

In order to promote the research on 5G mm-waves technology and standards, as well as discussing the development of follow-up industries, FuTURE Mobile Communication Forum established a 5G microwave mm-waves technology task force in 2017 to carry out joint research focusing on 5G microwave mm-waves. The working group has gathered the strengths of industrial chains including operating enterprises, equipment and chip manufacturing enterprises, testing enterprises, terminal enterprises, integrated circuit enterprises and research institutions in the industry, established a complete research team to research Application Scenarios, System Architecture and Standards of 5G MMW, Channel Characteristics and Frequency Spectrum Planning of 5G MMW, System Measurement Method, Special-use Equipment and Test Specification of 5G MMW, Chips, Devices and Technologies for 5G MMW, and Packaging Technology of 5G MMW and other topics.

On such a basis, FuTURE Mobile Communication Forum has held a 5G mm-waves technology workshop every year since 2017, bringing industry experts together to discuss issues related to 5G mm-waves chips, standards, application scenarios and frequencies, etc.

This workshop mainly focused on the architecture of 5G mm-waves base station and terminal system, the test and measurement interface of 5G mm-waves RF and baseband, the design and technique progress of 5G mm-waves chips, and the dynamic tracking of global 5G mm-waves spectrum, etc.

Professor Hong Wei, Chairman of 5G Microwave Millimeter Waves Working Group and Director of State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves made a keynote speech, proposing that there are multiple important application fields for mm-waves, such as 5G mm-waves, mm-waves ultra-high-speed short-range wireless access technology, air networking, mm-waves automobile radar, radio astronomy system, mm-waves imaging system, etc. He also mentioned in his speech that the mm-waves national key laboratory of Southeast University had carried out microwave mm-waves and terahertz integrated circuit research for nearly 20 years. With the support of the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), it took the lead in bringing Chinese CMOS analog integrated circuits into mm-waves and terahertz frequency bands. At present, mm-waves and terahertz chips designed based on CMOS, SiGe, GaAs and GaN techniques are at the cutting-edge in China.

In terms of the design and technique of 5G mm-waves chips, Zhao Yuhang, Chief Engineer of Huahong Group and Qian Feng, Deputy General Manager of Nanjing Nandixun Electronic Co., Ltd analyzed the application prospect and current development of compound semiconductors and silicon-based semiconductors in detail.

In terms of 5G mm-waves base station and terminal system architecture, Guan Hao, 5G Architecture and Standard R & D Manager of Alcatel Shanghai Bell Co., Ltd, Huang Huanqu, Chief Antenna Expert of Vivo, and Li Bozhi, Researcher of China Communications Research Institute of Samsung Electronics, delivered wonderful speeches on system architecture and antenna design respectively.

OTA testing is the key segment in the development of 5G mm-waves. Yan Kai, Researcher of China Mobile Research Institute, Han Bin, Standard Expert of Qualcomm, Kong Hongwei, Manager of China Laboratory of Keysight Technologies, and Wang Wei, Senior Technical Expert of Ericsson, have described the current testing progress. Experts pointed out that the medium-field test method had met the commercial conditions; there was no consensus on the performance test of mm-waves base stations (non-RF index tests) at present, and the construction of a multi-user environment was a matter to be considered.

Finally, Meng Xi, Communication Standard Expert of ZTE, gave a comprehensive introduction of the current global 5G mm-waves spectrum dynamics. He proposed that WRC-19 meeting was to be held, and different regions' research on the 1.13 topic had important guiding significance for the development of the high-frequency band in China. In order to promote the identification of IMT frequency band, the research on technical indicators and deployment conditions of IMT in 24.25-27-56H2 and 37-42.56Hz wave frequency band shall be actively carried out.

Hong Wei, Chairman of 5G Mm-wave Working Group, FuTURE Mobile Communication Forum