Wideband transceiver supports multistandard 3G/4G/5G base-station applications (.PDF Download)
Base-station developers face a variety of challenges as 5G arrives, according to Peadar Forbes, marketing and applications director at Analog Devices. New 5G networks will need to support three use cases—extreme mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine communication, and ultrareliable low-latency communication. Mobile broadband users will expect 100-Mb/s data rates wherever needed with peak rates extending to more than 10 Gb/s. And broadband 5G networks will serve 10 to 100 times more devices and experience 10,000 times more traffic, compared with previous generations.
Massive machine communications will require low-cost, low-power implementations that allow devices to operate on batteries for 10 years or more. And ultrareliable communication applications will require latencies of 1 ms or lower.
Forbes said Analog Devices’ base-station customers experience several pain points with respect to time to market and a huge increase in portfolio complexity and cost pressures. They are contending with multiple variants with respect to formfactors, frequency ranges, software variants, and antenna count, with high-density radios putting pressure on system size, weight, and power (SWaP).