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Entering the Era of Small Cells
BY:
Sten E. Gunnarsson, Ph.D., R&D Team at Sivers IMA September 2015
Entering the era of small cells by Sten E Gunnarsson, Ph.D., R&D team at Sivers IMA
Introduction
Millimeter wave technology has traditionally been considered an interest for advanced research applications such as astronomy and military, but is now starting to evolve into commodity thanks to the introduction of highly integrated components in the open market. This has facilitated the use and design of millimeter wave equipment. There are however many issues remaining in order to efficiently handle the performance to price challenge. Sten E. Gunnarsson holds a PhD in millimeter wave design and has a long experience in the telecom industry. Sten is part of the design team at Sivers IMA and participates in several EU led FP7 projects, including the E3Networks, DOTSEVEN and MiWaveS1. In this paper, Sten leads us through market challenges and possible solutions, as we are about to fully enter the era of small cells.
Background
Telecom operators are under continuous pressure to provide ever more capacity at lower cost. According to the Ericsson Mobility June Report video traffic will grow by 55 per cent per year until 2020, while Huawei’s Global Connectivity Index indicates that by 2025, the number of Internet of Things devices installed will require 100 billion connections. The era of data caps, limited coverage, and service restrictions is coming to a close as applications such as mobile high definition video, conference applications and gaming are becoming common, enabled by devices such as smartphones and tablets. Suppliers of infrastructure equipment to network operators are thus also under pressure to deliver solutions for these demands. The access network is naturally a large part of the question, but backhaul to the access network can also be a bottleneck in providing capacity. Massive future proof capacity is available via fiber, but this is not always an option, due to physical restrictions, or due to installation cost. Wireless backhaul can provide a robust and flexible alternative, and has long been a good alternative in many situations. Wireless backhaul technology is rapidly advancing, with up to 10 Gbps now possible using advance System on Chip modems.
1 Current EU funded projects where Sivers IMA take part:
E3Network FP7 Project: Energy Efficient E-‐band Transceiver for the Backhaul of Future Networks. A project with objective to develop a backhaul technology that will strengthen the position of European Industry in field of network infrastructure technology.
DOTSEVEN: Towards 0.7 Terahertz Silicon Germanium Heterojunction Bipolar Technology. A project with main objective to reinforce and further strengthen Europe’s leading edge position in SiGe HBT technology and modeling as well as SiGe enabled mm-‐wave applications so as to stay significantly ahead of non-‐European competition. The consortium consists of 14 partners from industry and academia in 6 European countries.
MiWaveS: The European collaborative project is developing millimeter-‐wave wireless communication technologies for future 5th Generation heterogeneous cellular mobile networks.
Challenges
Frequency Spectrum - a limited resource The increased demand for capacity will obviously demand higher requirements of the backhaul. There is however limited availability of frequency spectrum. This in turn encourages that one take advantage of the mm-‐wave frequency bands at 60 and 70 -‐ 80 GHz, what we call the V-‐ and E-‐band, where wide bandwidth is still available.
Shorter product life cycles and Increased price pressure Technology development cycles keep getting shorter and shorter, and the prices customers are willing to pay for hardware keep falling. Telecom suppliers are therefore under pressure to deliver more for less. A tough challenge as cost of developing products to be used in the V-‐ and E-‐band frequencies is high, both in terms of engineering hours and in instrumentation.
Market uncertainty The fact that the market for V-‐ and E-‐band radio links has not yet taken off as expected makes the decision to start developing such products risky for individual radio link manufacturers. Despite the missed historical forecasts, all present data indicates that the mm-‐wave market will most definitely grow significant in the immediate future. When it does take off, all suppliers will have to be prepared and ready to go.
Worldwide millimeter wave equipment market
Over the past few years, the market for millimeter wave equipment has been small but stable. It is now starting to truly take off. Prognoses for the upcoming three to five years show strong growth for products in the E-‐ and V-‐band frequencies.
Source: Infonetics Research 2014
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
W-‐band
V-‐band (unlicensed)
E-‐band (licensed)
Entering the era of small cells by Sten E Gunnarsson, Ph.D., R&D team at Sivers IMA
Macro cell vs. Small cell backhaul Outdoor Small Cell Equipment dominates millimeter wave backhaul market. Outcome for 2013 compared to forecast for 2018
YEAR 2013
YEAR 2018
Source: Infonetics Research 2014
Macrocell backhaul78%
Small cell backhaul
7%
Access11%
Transport4%
Macrocell backhaul37%
Small cell backhaul59%
Access3%
Transport1%
Different challenges depending on company
Suppliers of radio link equipment can be divided into three categories depending on company size, each facing significantly different challenges and needs.
The small and new manufacturers normally have limited resources and experience with mm-‐wave technology; a major obstacle for the development of mm-‐wave radio link.
The medium sized manufacturers need to concentrate all efforts on the frequencies that most likely will return on their investments. Therefore, the mm-‐wave radios are often down prioritized since the resources are limited and focused on the products that sell in larger volumes.
The large manufactures deliver equipment in big numbers for all frequencies. Since the number of delivered mm-‐wave radio links is small, the development of such products is of lower priority and is a disturbance of day-‐to-‐day activities. However these operators need a full product portfolio including mm-‐wave radios.
Given shrinking spectrum availability combined with the ever increased demand for data capacity, radio link manufacturers should consider having mm-‐wave products in their product portfolio -‐ regardless of company size.
M L S
SMALL MEDIUM LARGE
L
S
M
Entering the era of small cells by Sten E Gunnarsson, Ph.D., R&D team at Sivers IMA
The Sivers IMA solution
Sivers IMA's mm-‐wave converters are designed as plug and play, with a minimum of engineering hours and testing, offering radio link manufacturers customized solutions. Sivers IMA provides reliable, market-‐ready converters as well as transceiver solutions backed with experienced competence in radio link systems. As the core technology of the converters is based on a proprietary SiGe chipset, the customer can influence the features and interface of the converter down to chip level. All products are tested and qualified before delivery. As the interfaces are well defined, consistent performance can be certified by Sivers IMA, in contrast to solutions in surface mount or chip-‐level packages. The converters are designed to be used with modems optimized for operation in the V-‐ and/or E-‐band, to allow use of up to 2 GHz IF bandwidth. Using converters from Sivers IMA reduces investments both in time and development costs, due to the fact that development and testing are easily performed and require no, or minimum, experience from mm-‐wave frequencies.
Image 1: Sivers IMA Converter
Addressing different challenges
Small Size companies Sivers IMA allows small and new companies to enter the mm-‐wave market without having to invest heavily in expertize, hardware resources and production. This opens a market that would otherwise be not be reachable without large risk.
Mid size companies To medium sized companies Sivers IMA offers complementing solutions to strengthen their product portfolio in order to maximize their market impact. These products minimize risk and reduce time to market. It also decreases the need for investment in new resources and instrumentation as well as production equipment.
Large size companies Sivers IMA offer a generic converter for fast integration in existing platforms which facilitates a faster time to market in the early stages of the product lifecycle.
Sivers IMA Core Technology
Compared to pre-‐packaged solutions with little flexibility available for changing the product to suit the exact customer specifications, the new generation converters from Sivers IMA provide easy to use and flexible technology allowing for example changing the LO, if lower phase noise is needed. Sivers IMA's extensive experience with mm-‐wave products has been fully utilized in development of its propriety SiGe RFIC. This, in combination with a thorough understanding of microwave radio manufacturers’ requirements for functionality and performance, has led to a very competitive product. Tens of thousands of development hours and large investments in production of RFICs and instrumentation ensures problem-‐free operation and a high product quality.
Image 2: Sivers IMA SiGe chip
Entering the era of small cells by Sten E Gunnarsson, Ph.D., R&D team at Sivers IMA
The modules are designed as plug and play, bringing not only savings in customer’s development time, but also time saved in production, as Sivers IMA's products are delivered, tested and ready for use. View data sheets: FC2121E01 E-‐band Converter 71-‐76 GHz TX FC2121E02 E-‐band Converter 81-‐86 GHz TX FC2221E01 E-‐band Converter 71-‐76 GHz RX FC2221E02 E-‐band Converter 81-‐86 GHz RX
Glossary and notes
SiGe Chip Silicon Germanium Chip RFIC Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit V-‐band Frequency bands at 58-‐63 GHz E-‐band Frequency bands at 71-‐76 & 81-‐86 GHz W-‐band Frequency bands at 75-‐110 GHz
Contact Details
info@siversima.com www.siversima.com
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