Texas Instruments: What supports the leap forward in 5G base stations?

June 24, 2021 / PRnewswire / -- 4G is changing life, 5G is changing society, just not so easily.

China is one year ahead of 2020, the first year of global 5G commercialization as defined by the ITU. According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, shipments of 5G mobile phones in China from January to April 2021 totaled 91.267 million units, accounting for 72.7 percent of the total market and up 38.4 percent year-on-year. This partly reflects the speed at which 5G communication is advancing at the individual user level.

But 5G is more than just mobile phones. In an era of connected everything, highways must be built in advance, making 5G the undisputed leader of new infrastructure. Compared with 4G, 5G has clearly planned three application scenarios at the initial stage: enhanced mobile broadband, whose peak rate will be more than 10 times that of 4G; Massive machine communication will realize the whole link from consumption to production, and the whole scene from people to things; Ultra high reliability low delay communication, communication response speed will be reduced to millisecond level.

The resulting vision for vertical applications is like science fiction, underpinned by towering towers that don't look very romantic.

New changes in 5G base station construction

All good future, the road always twists and turns. In the industry, the short board of 5G base station is ridiculed as 'coverage, cost and power consumption three threes', that is, 3 times cost, 3 times power consumption and 1/3 coverage. Wenjing, an outstanding technical expert from Texas Instruments (TI), analyzed that 5G MM's high frequency performance is partly due to Massive MIMO technology, which requires 32-channel, 64-channel and other multi-channel architectures. The increase in the number of hardware channels directly leads to an exponential increase in cost, power consumption and volume. Operators urgently need to greatly reduce the cost of station construction and operation, so they put forward higher requirements for chip integration, power consumption and cost.

TI is one of the earliest semiconductor manufacturers to participate in China's 5G construction. Vic, regional sales manager of Texas Instruments China, introduced that China's 5G construction takes the lead globally. By 2020, China has laid out more than 700,000 5G base stations, and completed the large-capacity coverage of some key cities. In 2021, it is planned to build 840,000 units to complete a wider layout and focus on 700MHz 4T4R networking. TI has been striving to achieve the goal of high integration, low power consumption and low cost through more advanced process nodes, more innovative design architecture and larger integration. In fact, each generation of TI products achieves about 30% improvement in power consumption at the same scale through process evolution/design architecture innovation.

Continuous improvement of the architecture

RRU unit as the last link of wireless communication, the most critical equipment, just like a bridge in the sky, to ensure the accurate and real-time delivery of information. While the RF front end is just the pipes in the 5G base station and the real brain is processors like ASIC/FPGA, the human body can't perform normal activities without healthy pipes feeding the brain with nutrients and data. Rf signal processing and modulation in RRU is as complex as blood vessels and nerves in human body. Rf front-end is a very challenging and crucial area in RRU.

In a conventional superheterodyne system, a receiver receives a signal at the RF frequency and converts it down to a lower intermediate frequency (IF), where it is digitized, filtered and demodulated. The RF front end performs complex signal chain processing. With the development of ADC and DAC converter technology, analog frequency conversion can be converted to digital direct frequency conversion, thereby omiting the intermediate frequency link, making the overall hardware design of rf direct collection transmitter much simpler, so the size is smaller and the design cost is lower.

Nice digital RF direct acquisition

TI has accumulated many years in the field of analog and digital mixed RF signals. AFE7920 is a digital rf direct acquisition chip developed based on TI's rich experience. Compared with pure analog integration, AFE7920 has many advantages.

Firstly, operators usually require instantaneous bandwidth of up to 400MHz in sub 6GHz band and at least 400MHz/800MHz in millimeter wave band. TI transceiver can support up to the widest 800MHz bandwidth, meet all Sub 6GHz and part of the millimeter wave application requirements.

Second, full scenario support makes platform normalization possible. Compared with 4G, THE forms of 5G base stations are more diversified, including macro stations, small stations, Massive MIMO and so on. The same chip can support different base station forms, which enables customers to reduce development costs and bring products to market faster.

It also supports mixed mode. A 4T4R single-mode chip is split into two independent 2T2R carrying different frequency bands to achieve a single-chip mixed-mode scenario. For example, 2T2R TDD+2T2R FDD. Furthermore, the ultra-high sampling rate of rf direct acquisition architecture makes it possible to achieve dual-band digital far-out, thus realizing dual-band transmission and reception at the channel level. For example, the dual-band application of 1.8GHz+2.1GHz in macro station scenario (receiving baseband signals of 1.8GHz and 2.1GHz respectively from ASIC/FPGA, The digital circuit is realized inside the chip, and finally the dual-frequency band is transmitted through the same transmission channel, receiving is the reverse operation). The rf pull distance of the two bands can reach 3GHz, meeting the needs of customers in different aspects.

5G looks at China, rf direct receiver looks at TI

In 2017, China's first generation of 4G MIMO base station adopted TI's 4T4R rf direct acquisition chip, while China's first generation of 5G base station also adopted TI's RF signal chain solution. This is also the difference between TI and its competitors, that is, the definition of 5G products is focused on China, which is closer to the needs of Chinese customers. This is also a reflection of TI's deep involvement in China for 35 years.

TI plays an extremely important role in China's 5G base station construction, spanning 2G/3G/4G/5G network, including macro station, Massive MIMO, small station and other station types. And TI is constantly improving its products to support more channels, greater bandwidth and lower power consumption to meet customers' ever-changing needs. TI's newly released AFE8092 8T8R rf direct acquisition multi-band transceiver further through architecture innovation on the basis of AFE7920, while improving integration, it once again achieves 30% reduction of power consumption in the same scenario. Can better meet Massive MIMO requirements than 4T4R products.

To cope with the complex 5G communication architecture, active antenna systems are evolving faster than ever before. These include the need to reduce the size of the signal chain, reduce complexity, and provide broadband and multiple frequencies simultaneously; High-density power management that can operate at high ambient temperatures; And network synchronization through packet-based forward interface. In addition to the highly integrated analog front end, TI also provides power supply, clock, MCU, amplifier, interface, etc. to achieve a full system solution.

Not long ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published the 5G Application 'Sail' action Plan (2021-2023) on its website and formally solicited opinions. The goal is that by 2023, China's 5G application development level will be significantly improved and comprehensive strength will continue to increase. The penetration rate of INDIVIDUAL 5G users exceeded 40 percent, with more than 560 million users. 5G network traffic accounted for more than 50 percent of the total traffic, and the efficiency of 5G network use significantly improved. The average annual growth rate of 5G iot terminal users exceeds 200%.

5 g base stations is the foundation of the new information infrastructure, TI has the category complete analog and embedded processing series of products, strong local manufacturing research and development capabilities, products distribution and sales network all over the country, and help customers in China to achieve a lower latency and higher data rate of 5 g system, to promote more innovative applications, to China's new infrastructure. With its roots in China for 35 years, TI is committed to meeting future challenges together with Chinese customers.

Integrated circuits are small, so the heart can be bigger.

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Source: Texas Instruments