This year is 5G commercial first year. After winning 5G licenses on June 6, the operator opened the pace of 5G commercial network construction, and some of the progressive big cities have deployed thousands of 5G base stations. Operators also provide 5G trial packages to the public, have adopted 5G high-speed networks, such as the national youth sports meeting held in Shanxi, users can watch "5G live" with 5G mobile phones, and feel extraordinary 5G experience.
5G has been commercially used, but most users are not familiar with 5G innovative technologies. As one of the world's mainstream 5G network suppliers, ZTE has recently opened the "5G Innovative Laboratory" in the Shanghai Institute recently, unveiled the veil of some "black technology" products behind 5G commercial use.
ZTE 5G Innovation Laboratory
Innovation of antennas and devices
5G is a major technological innovation in the mobile communication industry, deploying Tianjin line systems and 5G equipment in 5G base stations, including devices and chips, are full of core technologies. As early as 4G era, ZTE has developed a fusion of radiofrequency and antenna integrated, using a PCB-in-line architecture, no feeder, no electricity, smaller, and flexible digital beamforming .
The antenna and RF modules go from the separation architecture to the integrated architecture, the original architecture is the BBU + RRU + antenna, which has become BBU + AAU. This breakthrough architecture innovation has become a general practice of the current 5G macro station in the whole industry. C114 learned from the 5G Innovation Lab that ZTE is developing the next-generation Massive MIMO antenna, which will achieve integrated fusion of antenna and filter, further reduce the volume and cost of the 5G base station.
During this process, ZTE also allows the filter to be more miniaturized. The filter is a very critical device, which previously 4G Massive MIMO uses the same metal cavity filter as the traditional macro station. Enter 5G era, ZTE uses integrated molding, automated commissioning process, under the same performance requirements, use The small cavity filter achieves 70% of the volume and the weight reduced by 50%, which is slimming for the whole machine.
In the 5G innovation laboratory, ZTE also shows a new generation of ceramic filters to make the whole machine thinner. It is understood that the ceramic filter has high inhibition, the insertion loss is small, and the temperature drift characteristics is characterized. The second is that the power capacity and passive intermodulation performance have been greatly improved, representing the development direction of high-end RF devices, will become The mainstream of the 5G era.
In addition, for another indispensable device-power amplifier, ZTE communication will "chip". In 2017, ZTE combined with GaN (gallium nitride) materials, realizing the miniaturization leap of the amplifier device, the area reduced by 1/2, the top power can reach 200W, the amplifier efficiency reached 47%. 5G The second generation power amplifier exhibited by the 5G innovative laboratory will continue to integrate on the first generation, the area continues to shrink, the efficiency reaches 200MHz, with a top power of 320W.
Autonomous research and development chip highlight
If a 5G machine device is more than the car, the chip and algorithm are similar to the engine and control system.
At the core chip field of the base station, ZTE adopts the way of self-research, the leap of baseband chips from 28 nm to 7 nm, 7 nm chips will be commercially available this year, and the baseband chip is 5 nm. The digital intermediate frequency chip also achieves three generations of self-developing from 40 nm to 7nm, and the 7nm chip will be commercially available this year, and the next generation chip will implement 5nm.
At the same time, it is equipped with the self-developing algorithm of ZTE, escorting the Massive MIMO machine performance. The promotion of network-level performance through the Massive MIMO system simulation platform and the link simulation platform is performed by performance optimization platform and smart power saving platform.
Crack 5G power problems
The 5G base station introduces large-scale antenna technology, the volume, weight and heat dissipation of AAU are challenged. The 5G prototype is impressed, it is a high-powerful "big guy". It is reported that when 5G is just deployed, operators and industry customers are very concerned about the weight and power consumption of 5G equipment. These issues have brought uncommon challenges to installation and power supply.
In the 5G Innovation Lab, it can be seen that ZTE has undergone a lot of new materials and new processes to this difficult hard bones. For example, the heat dissipation teeth designed, the upper heat is diffused, resulting in high temperature of the heat dissipation structure, reduces heat dissipation efficiency, and becomes a heat dissipation bottleneck. ZTE's unique V-tooth structure design, improved heat dissipation flow, so that the front of the cold air is on both sides, avoiding the heat level, heat dissipation is 20%, and become the industry's first creation.
ZTE has expected that 5G first-generation Massive MIMO base station is reduced by 1/3, and the weight is reduced by 1/3. In the case where the next generation base station, the number of arrays is constant, and the AAU thickness will further decrease, thinner 30%.
Subsequent
According to reports, it is possible to develop a large amount of innovative 5G product technology, and the DEVOPS R & D management platform built independently constructed from ZTE is not open. This platform can simultaneously manage more than 30,000 R & D staff around the world, support the world's 15 R & D centers, more than 600 projects, to ensure the quality of hardware and software products, 50% per capita efficiency, greatly accelerate the overall progress of R & D.
5G will play a key role in digital transformation of the national economy. The strategic value does not need to talk. From a global point, 5G is quickly traveling to commercial, ZTE, as one of the world's four suppliers, continuous focus of 5G R & D investment, and has formed and being developing a batch of high-precision technology results will play for 5G commercial processes. Important promotion.
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