Evaluation Engineering - 8

5G TECHNOLOGY

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Ken Karnofsky, senior strategist ,
MathWorks: As the wireless industry
moves towards 5G, design concepts are
becoming more complex. Currently, the
entire signal chain, from RF to baseband,
can be implemented in a single programmable device or module. However, most
engineering teams do not have incumbent engineers with the expertise to
design and integrate these devices into
a complete system. We are focusing on
working with companies to equip their
wireless engineering teams with the
knowledge surrounding a complete 5G
workflow-connecting algorithm design,
system simulation, OTA testing, prototyping, and implementation. This mitigates
design challenges and saves design teams
development and verification time.

be critical for most manufacturers of 5G
devices. Achieving the lowest possible test
times will be a major productivity push
moving forward.

Key features

Adnan Khan, senior business development manager, wireless products,
Anritsu: Key features of interest are calibration of antenna arrays as beamforming becomes an integral part of FR2 testing. Antenna and RFFE designers want
to ensure that antenna array elements
are properly calibrated relative to phase
measurements. Another feature in strong
demand is Dynamic Spectrum Sharing
(DSS), which provides the ability for LTE
and 5G NR to share spectrum in the same
geographical area. This feature allows operators to immediately use 5G NR on LTE
bands without having to wait for the FCC
to carve out 5G NR spectrum from LTE
bands, which could be a lengthy process.

What key features are customers asking
for in 5G solutions?
Buritica, National Instruments: The ability to test new device types such as IF-toRF and RF-to-RF beamformers with simplified switching setups and calibrated
signal paths. These features enable fast
and accurate characterization, validation, and production test of the Tx and
Rx amplifiers and phase shifters.
The industry is also working hard on
producing fast and reliable solutions
for OTA testing of mmWave devices.
Engineers continue to request higher
bandwidth test coverage, expecting 5G
channel bandwidths, especially in the
mmWave frequency bands, to keep growing to 800 MHz and beyond.
Walker, Copper Mountain Technologies:
Customers are likely to need additional
analysis software to help them process
the complicated measurements they are
making. Fulfilling those needs will be
challenging.
Semancik, Marvin Test Solutions: 5G
test systems must be able to measure
and analyze several parameters not required in lower frequency applications.
For example, gain, intermodulation,
S-parameters, and noise figure are common. Test times and throughput tend to

EVALUATION ENGINEERING DECEMBER 2019

Nichols, Keysight Technologies: Now that
5G networks are beginning to go commercial, we see an increase in demand
for solutions that test integrated radio
and network systems. Network emulation and UE emulation systems lead this
demand given the need for device, gNB,
and network scaling. The features include
mmWave coverage, massive MIMO testing, design-validation capabilities for
regression testing of the device or basestation software updates, conformance
and preconformance testing, and end-toend validation.

Douglas, Spirent: 5G Core emulation-
Customers want to develop and move
quickly to the new 5G Core and need
solutions to help efficiently validate the
new architecture, its disaggregated capabilities, and new features like slicing.
5G device testing (location accuracy)-Moving beyond basic certification
testing and carrier acceptance, testing
focus is now on specific feature capabilities critical for emergency services and
new industry use cases (e.g., automotive,
smart factories). Location is a critical capability, and while 4G will dominate its
implementation in the short term, there
are numerous issues regarding multisignal interference which need to be resolved

in addition to the new sensor-fusion capabilities that will greatly improve location
accuracy, especially indoors.
5G cloud and edge environment validation-The new 5G network is being
designed with edge and cloud datacenters as key parts of the disaggregated
architecture.
5G security continuous auditing-Live
testing of security systems is necessary to
proactively identify weaknesses to determine whether they are still fit for purpose.
5G user experience (data, video and
voice)-This requires testing of perceived
experience of end users using machinelearning-based algorithms that closely
match what a viewer "sees."
5G Energy Efficiency-This involves
continuously evaluating energy efficiency
of network equipment and networks in
relation to optimizing for performance,
quality, and service.
Roessler, Rohde & Schwarz: We see the
need for DSS. This feature enables 5G
NR-LTE coexistence as both technologies use the same frequency bands. The
majority of network operators worldwide
are actively utilizing FR1 spectrum. The
frequency bands and channels are occupied and used by LTE-thus not available to roll out a 5G coverage layer using
lower frequency bands. DSS enables this
by implementing several features that
allow NR and LTE to use the same spectrum without creating interference. This
functionality requires in-depth testing.
Dr. Jeorge Hurtarte, wireless product marketing strategist, Teradyne: The following
are some of the key test features that customers are asking for to test 5G NR devices:
* Capability of testing millimeter-wave
devices in the frequency range of 6 to
44 GHz. They need to test both the RF
and IF frequency ranges of new millimeter-wave transceiver and modem
devices.
* An easy ATE upgrade path from traditional sub-6-GHz to millimeter-wave
testing. This is a key challenge as
manufacturers have a large installed
base of sub-6-GHz ATE and desire
to redeploy such installed base with
millimeter-wave testing capability.

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Evaluation Engineering

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