The millimeter wave industry is progressing like a bamboo, and the terminal industry still needs to continue to work hard

After the ITU allocated the millimeter wave frequency band, countries have begun to accelerate the research and development process of millimeter wave products and equipment.

As the global deployment of 5G networks advances in depth, commercial deployment of 5G millimeter waves is also gradually unfolding around the world. Several major U.S. major communications operators including AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have already provided 5G millimeter wave commercial services, while multiple operators including Japan’s NTT docomo and South Korea’s KT have also started 5G millimeter wave systems. Commercial deployment and positive progress. GSA stated that as of June 2020, only in the 24.25~29.5GHz spectrum range, 127 operators in 42 countries/regions around the world have made 5G investments in the form of trials, licenses, deployments or operating networks.

China‘s millimeter wave progress is also accelerating. Since 2019, China’s IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group has conducted overall planning to advance the 5G millimeter wave test work in three stages: in 2019, it will focus on verifying 5G millimeter wave key technologies and system characteristics; in 2020, it will focus on verifying 5G millimeter wave base stations and The functions, performance and interoperability of terminals will be verified in typical scenarios from 2020 to 2021.

Equipment manufacturers 5G millimeter wave testing is in full swing

Millimeter wave network construction is currently in full swing around the world, and equipment manufacturers have introduced diversified equipment and conducted various tests to promote millimeter wave equipment to continue to mature.

Huawei‘s millimeter wave is making rapid progress. In November 2017, Huawei and Japan’s NTT docomo jointly demonstrated Japan’s first 5G millimeter wave CPE real service, enabling the holographic video call service to successfully run on the end-to-end 5G network including 5G millimeter wave CPE; in May 2019, In the China 5G enhancement technology research and development test organized by the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group, Huawei used the Mate 20X 5G version of the mobile phone to be the first to get through the world’s first VoNR call under the 5G SA network, including voice and video, which uses Huawei’s 5G multi-mode The terminal chip Barong 5000 supports a peak download rate of 6.5Gbit/s in the millimeter wave band, and can support up to 7.5Gbit/s in the 5G NR+LTE dual-connection working mode; as of October 2019, Huawei has completed the 5G millimeter For the function, radio frequency and field performance of the key technology test of the wave, Huawei HiSilicon chip has carried out the indoor function test of the key technology of 5G millimeter wave.

In order to meet the challenge of millimeter wave, ZTE Corporation has been conducting millimeter wave research since 2014, and actively carried out 5G millimeter wave research and development, functional testing, and field trials to prepare for millimeter wave large-scale commercial use. First of all, ZTE proposed a hybrid shaping and arrayed high EIRP (base station radiated power) design idea, using a more economical process to achieve millimeter wave high EIRP. Secondly, ZTE has designed an intelligent beam scheme and a scene-based beam configuration scheme to make the millimeter wave beam more flexible and solve the problem of coverage holes. Finally, ZTE has designed a millimeter wave networking solution, which can achieve millimeter wave coverage with the help of low-frequency and LTE networks.

For example, tests conducted by ZTE‘s millimeter wave solution in Indonesia showed that the peak downlink rate of a single user reached 5Gbit/s; ZTE conducted SA tests at 5 stations in Japan, and 4K video downloads and playback were smooth when the car was moving at a high speed; ZTE conducted a large number of multi-scenario coverage and service tests in Shanghai. The test showed that the system using ZTE has achieved good coverage both outdoors and indoors for outdoor signal coverage. In July 2019, in the millimeter wave band test of China‘s 5G enhancement technology research and development test organized by the IMT-2020 (5G) promotion group, ZTE completed the 26GHz band 5G base station radio frequency OTA test. In October 2019, ZTE and Qualcomm successfully implemented 5G millimeter wave interoperability tests based on smartphones.

Ericsson‘s millimeter wave products have gone through three generations of iterations, and a large number of optimization adjustments have been made to application scenarios, from the first generation to FWA applications, and subsequent mobile terminal applications, and miniaturization and optimization, making it easier to deploy on street stations. Baseband integration optimization greatly reduces the difficulty of backhaul. Low power, miniaturization, and easy deployment are the key optimization directions for millimeter waves in the 5G era.

Ericsson cooperates with operators to actively promote millimeter wave applications around the world. As of mid-2020, more than 20 commercial networks or pilot projects have been completed. In my country, Ericsson has used commercial equipment + commercial terminals (smartphones, CPE) end-to-end testing to achieve a very high rate level in the industry (downstream 8CC achieves 4Gbit/s or more, uplink 2CC achieves 220Mbit/s), coverage level ( CPE exceeds 2.3km).

Nokia Bell has also made a lot of efforts in the millimeter wave field. On August 31, 2020, in the China 5G enhancement technology research and development trial millimeter wave test organized by the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group, Nokia Bell was the first to successfully demonstrate millimeter wave 4Gbit/s in the Huairou IMT-2020 5G trial field. Peak performance has been unanimously approved by the experts of the test team and representatives of operators.

The level of the terminal industry needs to be improved

While equipment testing is advancing all the way, the terminal industry is also constantly exploring. It is understood that the millimeter wave terminal design is more complicated. The millimeter wave industry is mainly limited by the following aspects: higher requirements for baseband processing, greater calculation requirements, higher requirements for backhaul, small physical size of the antenna, and high design requirements for integration, usually based on IC chips. To achieve this, product design is difficult, costly, and design cycle longer. From the terminal point of view, the current support for millimeter waves is relatively low, and the chip richness is insufficient. Only some flagship phones support millimeter waves. According to the latest statistics from GSA, only about 30% support millimeter waves.

Before 5G, cellular mobile communication terminal equipment had never worked in such a high frequency band. The terminal and component industry chain lacked experience in the development and testing of millimeter wave products. The cost, volume, power consumption and other indicators of millimeter wave chips and components were all It is far inferior to the corresponding products in the middle and low frequency bands.

Qualcomm has introduced chips such as the Snapdragon X50 and X55, as well as the third-generation QTM535 millimeter wave antenna module for mobile needs, which integrates antennas, RF front-ends, and transceivers in a very compact size. A mobile phone can use multiple millimeter wave modules, which not only meets the compact and slim design requirements of smart phones, but also meets power consumption requirements and provides maximum performance. According to a research report recently released by Strategy Analytics, as of July this year, only 23 of the 185 models of 5G smartphones that have been officially shipped on the global market support the millimeter wave frequency band, and all use Qualcomm‘s baseband chips and radio frequency components. . Qualcomm is currently the only chip manufacturer that can provide commercial millimeter wave chipsets and radio frequency subsystems. Although Huawei, Samsung and MediaTek may all launch millimeter-wave chipsets and radio frequency subsystems next year, the ecological development of 5G millimeter-wave terminal chips still lags behind mid- and low-frequency products.

Domestic modules are also being developed in full swing. It is understood that millimeter-wave terminals work at high frequencies above 24GHz, which have high technical requirements for the high-frequency performance of radio frequency devices, terminal millimeter-wave transmission line conductivity and joints, millimeter-wave antennas and mold design. The industry threshold is higher than that of Sub -6GHz. Among them, Quectel‘s millimeter wave terminal test anechoic chamber, equipment and other experimental test conditions are complete. The current Quectel millimeter wave RM510Q-GL module has completed the SFN certification test of Verizon in the United States, supporting customer equipment based on this millimeter wave model of Quectel. The group tested and verified in the VZW commercial network. At the same time, Quectel has supported multiple customers to complete tests on the millimeter wave experimental networks of different overseas operators. Quectel‘s mmWave module can support up to DL 7.5Gbit/s/UL 2.9Gbit/s rate, and the current module can support up to 8x8 64 millimeter wave array antennas.

All in all, millimeter wave needs to be gradually optimized in terms of technical solutions, electrical performance indicators, product maturity, and cost. In terms of chips, the mass production capacity of domestic 5G millimeter-wave chips has yet to be verified. Currently, it is mainly concentrated in the development of universities and research institutes, and it is urgent to promote the maturity of the domestic industrial chain. In addition, the low efficiency of devices such as millimeter wave power amplifiers results in high power consumption of the whole machine, which is not conducive to large-scale commercial use. Regardless of whether the network or the terminal, after the chip is made, the industry needs to increase the amount to reduce the cost. In general, the industry chain needs to form a consensus on clear application scenarios as soon as possible, make full use of existing industry achievements, and promote the normalized definition of product specifications, and put forward requirements for terminal support as soon as possible.