Digital front-end study for 5G Sub-6 and mmWave Systems (ARD/280)

The Millimeter wave (mmWave) market is estimated to grow 3 times higher than 2021 by 2026 and gradually to take dominant infrastructure installation base by 2032. The mmWave technology market shows high emerging demands in Chinese market. However, a major pain-point is that most of Chinese providers have to dedicate effort in specific area due to finite investment resource, resulting in lack of cross-area technical experience. Therefore, ASTRI shall develop Digital front-end (DFE) to enhance Sub-6 small cell radio commercialization and enable mmWave commercialization. The DFE bridges signal chain of base station between baseband processing and RF front-end modules. It significantly improves system performance to satisfy 3GPP specification and reduce system design cost. We will develop DFE functions and prove its effectiveness on solving HW limitation and improving performance without cost increase. In this project, we will quantify HW limitation of existing RF HW and study DFE algorithm to solve it. Quantification of performance improvement and trade-off shall be provided in final report. We also perform computer simulation to prove concept of DFE reference design. Study shall be based on key parameters of market HW prototype for potential commercial consideration.