Latest 5G News Stories

Keysight Introduces Performance Test Solution for Benchmarking 5G Devices and Base Stations

Keysight Technologies has introduced a new performance test solution that enables mobile operators to automatically benchmark and evaluate performance of 5G new radio (NR) devices and base stations in a laboratory environment.

Keysight's Performance Benchmarking Solution for Lab Networks enables mobile operators to flexibly, confidently, and cost-effectively evaluate how 5G devices and 5G base stations will perform in a live 5G NR network environment as new models, features and versions become available. The versatile test solution combines Keysight's Nemo Outdoor 5G NR Drive Test Solution, Nemo 5G Device Analytics software, and PathWave Test Automation, a test sequencer built on OpenTAP, an open source test automation engine, and complemented with a wide range of test cases to create an automated test environment. Click here to read more.

R&S Installs and Tests 5G Network in its Production Facility to Explore Industry 4.0 Use Cases

Rohde & Schwarz has installed a 5G campus network to leverage the possibilities and advantages of Industry 4.0 at its plant in Teisnach, Germany. The industrial-grade private 5G network infrastructure is based on the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC). Both companies will participate in the testing of the 5G campus network using Rohde & Schwarz network testing equipment to optimize their operation and performance. Gaining experience and valuable insights into private 5G network operation in its plant, and how to optimize deployment, was a major driver behind this project for Rohde & Schwarz.

The capacity, reactivity, and flexibility of 5G enable various new real-time use cases, including private wireless networks for smart factories. With 5G use cases creating demanding requirements for coverage, latency, and reliability, deployment can pose challenges for network planners and operators. As Rohde & Schwarz provides a wide portfolio of wireless network testing solutions addressing Industry 4.0 use cases, it has initiated its campus network, in preparation for the development of smart factories. This allows Rohde & Schwarz to optimize production processes and to validate its network testing solutions first hand. Click here to read more.

Samsung Developing Distributed FD-MIMO Solutions for Next-Gen Wireless Technology

Samsung has started research and development on Distributed FD-MIMO, which has the potential to become the next generation of radio technology. With Distributed FD-MIMO, Samsung aims to continue the innovation stream and achieve better performance and come up with another success story similar to FD-MIMO to take the industry forward to the next level.

FD-MIMO (also known as Massive MIMO, hyper MIMO, very large MIMO) is the use of a large number of antennas, tens, hundreds, and thousands, to dramatically increase the throughput and energy efficiency to a multitude of communications devices. It is commonly seen as the solution to many of the challenges associated with upcoming 5G technologies, especially in extremely high traffic urban areas that also require many very high throughput connections. Click here to read more.

Apple Ditches Qualcomm to Design its Own 5G mm-Wave Antenna Module for the iPhone 12

A recent teardown by iFixit of the new iPhone 12 revealed that Apple is using antenna modules designed by Universal Scientific Industrial (USI), a Shanghai based SiP design and manufacturing company, instead of Qualcomm’s offerings. iFixit is a wiki-based site that teaches people how to fix almost anything. They also empower individuals to share their technical knowledge with the rest of the world.

Apple chose to ditch Qualcomm in the mmWave 5G department even though most other mmWave 5G smartphones used Qualcomm 5G mmWave antenna module. The antenna embedded in the frame of the iPhone 12 is a USI product, labeled 339M00104 S30U7FH. The US variant of iPhone 12 comes with these 5G mmWave antenna modules—one embedded in the side of the frame, and another on the back of the logic board. Click here to read more.

Xilinx Introduces the Zynq RFSoC with a Digital Front End for 5G NR Deployments

Xilinx, has introduced the Zynq RFSoC DFE, an adaptive radio platform designed to meet the evolving standards of 5G NR. The Zynq RFSoC DFE combines hardened digital front-end (DFE) blocks and adaptable logic to build high performance, low power, and cost-effective 5G NR radio solutions for a broad array of use cases ranging across 5G low, mid, and high-band spectrum. Zynq RFSoC DFE offers the best balance of technologies between the cost economies of an ASIC using hardened blocks and the flexibility, scalability, and time-to-market benefits of a programmable and adaptive SoC.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Soitec Sign RF-SOI Wafer Supply Agreement for the Growing 5G Market

Leading specialty foundry, GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF), has announced a multi-year supply agreement with semiconductor materials company, Soitec, for 300 mm RF silicon-on-insulator (RF-SOI) wafers. Building on the long partnership between the two companies, this strategic agreement secures the supply of wafers that will allow GF to further expand its critical role in providing solutions for the next-generation mobile phone market. The agreement was finalized earlier this week in a virtual signing ceremony with leadership from both companies.

The primary driver of this wafer supply agreement is the growth of GF’s most advanced RF-SOI solution, 8SW RF SOI. The leading RF front-end-module (FEM) platform with best-in-class switches and low noise amplifiers, 8SW RF-SOI is optimized to deliver the differentiated combination of performance, power efficiency, and digital integration required by the designers and suppliers of current and future 4G LTE and sub-6 GHz 5G smartphones. This new platform is using the most advanced RF-SOI substrates developed by Soitec. GF’s 8SW RF-SOI customers include the top FEM providers for 5G sub-6 GHz smartphones. Click here to read more.

VIAVI Introduces 5G-NR and 4G LTE Enhancements to its Cell Site Installation and Maintenance Tool

Viavi Solutions has made enhancements to the VIAVI OneAdvisor-800 all-in-one tool to streamline cell site maintenance of 5G and 4G technologies. The OneAdvisor-800 is an All-in-one cell site installation and maintenance test tool for fiber, coax, and RF. With the addition of 5G NR and 4G LTE signal analyzer functionality to the award-winning OneAdvisor-800, field technicians can efficiently deploy, integrate, and troubleshoot today's multi-technology networks with a single instrument.

Even as communications service providers (CSPs) face mounting pressure to deliver on the promise of 5G, demand still exists to maintain and deploy essential LTE services. The VIAVI OneAdvisor-800 consolidates all key 5G and 4G cell site installation and integration tests, with support for fiber, coaxial cable, PIM detection, fronthaul, and spectrum/signal analysis. In addition to the efficiency of an all-in-one device, built-in automated workflows guide technicians through each test process and automatically store test results, further streamlining cell site certification and optimization. Click here to read more.

Reliance Jio Partners with Qualcomm to Bring 5G to India

Leading Indian telecom pioneer, Reliance Jio Platforms (Jio) along with its wholly owned subsidiary Radisys Corporation, and Qualcomm Technologies Inc, have expanded efforts to develop open and interoperable 5G solutions using virtualized RAN. This is intended to fast track the development and roll out of indigenous 5G network infrastructure and services in India. The companies also announced that they achieved a 1 Gbps milestone on the Reliance Jio 5G-NR software, leveraging Qualcomm® 5G RAN Platforms. This achievement not only supports Jio’s 5G credentials but also signifies the entry of Jio and India into the Gigabit 5G-NR product portfolio.

With 5G technology, users will experience the benefits of higher data rates, low latency communications and enhanced digital experiences across a wide array of connected devices, from 5G-enabled smartphones to enterprise laptops to AR/VR products to vertical IOT solutions. Mathew Oommen, President, Reliance Jio Infocomm, said, “We are excited about working with Qualcomm Technologies in developing new generation cloud native 5G RAN technology that is truly open and software defined. The development of secure RAN solutions with Qualcomm Technologies combined with Jio Platforms and scale provides the ideal combination for local manufacturing and for accelerating the realization of Atmanirbhar Bharat for an inclusive 5G nation.” Click here to read more.

Enea Creates Industry’s First 5G Standalone 3GPP Release 16 Interface for a Tier 1 Operator

Enea announced that a tier one North American operator has deployed its 5G network data layer (NDL) solution, Stratum to create the industry’s first 3GPP Release 16 interoperability interface in a 5G standalone (5G-SA) environment. The interface will allow the mobile operator to bring together all network and subscriber data from across its 4G and 5G networks.

Release 16, due to be launched later this year, places great emphasis on the interoperability between 4G and 5G providing a bridge between network generations. Using Release 16-compliant software, operators will be able to manage subscriptions and session data across access networks. This interoperability is crucial for a smooth user experience. Additionally, dynamic session data management allows operators to accelerate new service launches and to recover faster from any interruption – avoiding signaling storms in the 5G control plane. Click here to read more.

Narda Introduces Selective Radiation Meter for 5G-NR EMF Measurements

Narda Safety Test Solutions has introduced a Selective Radiation Meter for code-selective measurements of 5G signals. Looking at the new requirements for 5G NR, mobile network operators, organizations, private measurement service providers, and public authorities can also use their tried and tested 9 kHz to 6 GHz SRM-3006. The EMF test and measurement specialist offers a software option for the SRM-3006 to enable the code-selective measurement of 5G signals in the frequency range 1 (FR1). This is similar to the well-known software options for UMTS and LTE. The hardware of the industry-standard instrument for standard-compliant selective detection and evaluation of high-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) remains unchanged.

There is a newly developed down converter antenna for the upper-frequency range FR2 (> 24 GHz). Work on this new antenna, which in the initial phase will be designed for up to 30 GHz (40 GHz in the second phase) will be completed shortly. The antenna will down convert the upper 5G FR2 frequency band to enable the SRM to show the correct frequency easily. The SRM can already make frequency selective measurements on 5G signals perfectly. With code selective measurement and frequency extension to FR2, the SRM is the all-round carefree package for complete measurements concerning safety in electromagnetic fields. Click here to read more.

Lextrum’s Full Duplex Technology Achieves 100% Throughput Improvement in TDD Systems

Lextrum, a COMSovereign Holding Corp. company, has completed the hardware and firmware integration of its in-band full duplex passive suppression and active cancellation technology. This aims to maximize utilization of the available spectrum to address the explosive growth of wireless data traffic. Based upon initial testing, Lextrum has verified that its proprietary in-band full duplex hardware and firmware technology can mitigate an aggregate 120 dB of self-interference resulting in 100% throughput improvement over current Time Division Duplex-based systems like those utilized in 3G and Wi-Fi networks.

Full Duplex, the ability to simultaneously broadcast and receive wireless signals over a single wireless channel, has the potential to dramatically increase the throughput and spectral efficiency in increasingly congested and contested spectrum bands. Lextrum’s proprietary in-band full duplex technology addresses the limitation of Time and/or Frequency Division Duplexing (TDD/FDD respectively) methods by delivering up to a 100% throughput improvement over temporal based systems. Lextrum will complete its in-band full duplex technology integration with a 3GPP Release 15 LTE Software Defined Radio (SDR) by year-end. The company expects to begin over-the-air interoperability testing of its in-band full duplex enabled 4G LTE-A proof-of-concept SDR using its FCC granted experimental license starting next quarter. Click here to read more.

US 5G Mobile Market Hits an Interesting Acceleration Point

The US 5G market has hit an interesting stage with tons of action. On the mobile operator side, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon have all amassed 5G coverage for over 200 million Americans with low-band spectrum. Verizon and AT&T are rapidly deploying mmWave in major metros, stadiums, arenas and businesses. T-Mobile and US Cellular are also committed to mmWave. All these carriers are testing stand-alone 5G and will begin rolling it out in earnest in 2021.

Handset OEMs supporting 5G include Samsung, LG, OnePlus, Motorola, TCL, and now Apple. Chip players such as Qualcomm and MediaTek have 5G chipsets for smartphones as low as $150 – lower cost smartphones are en route. The entire telecom ecosystem is scaling up for 5G. Click here to read more.

Bandpass Filter

Lowpass Filter

Highpass Filter

Band Reject Filter

Diplexer

Triplexer

Flexible

Attenuators

Bends

Circulators

Directional Couplers

Isolators

Phase Shifter

Rotary Joints

Straights

Termination

Transitions

Waveguide to Coax Adapters

Rigid PCB Quotes

Flexible PCB Quotes

PCB Assembly Quotes

PCB Design Quotes

PCB Repair Quotes

PCB Stencil Quotes

Latest 5G News Stories