5G New Radio Solutions: Revolutionary Applications Here Sooner Than You Think

As demand grows for ubiquitous wireless connectivity and the promise of new and previously unimagined applications – such as autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, telemedicine and virtual reality – so does the anticipation for 5G. 5G will be revolutionary, delivering higher data throughput, extremely low latency and speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G. As a result, 5G is moving toward commercial reality faster than many expected. With that in mind, mobile operators are implementing near-term, tactical efforts to ensure that 5G demonstration hardware becomes available by late 2018 and throughout 2019.

This paper explores the practical first steps of any rollout, focusing on the spectrum below 6 GHz as standards for mmWave applications have yet to be defined. It is an introduction to what Skyworks believes will likely transpire over the next several years. In addition, it also focuses on the practical solutions for the 5G RF front-end (RFFE) in the sub-6 GHz arena.