By Bob Witte | December 24, 2020
RF power amplifiers consume lots of energy, which is a concern associated with 5G. Envelope tracking helps reduce power consumption but has tradeoffs.
By David Allan, Ericsson and Greg Dalle, Juniper Networks | December 2, 2020
Why the 5G core converges wireless with wireline
A toolkit lets integrated operators run their mobile and fixed-line operations on a common 5G core.
By Bob Witte | November 19, 2020
How to calculate RF power amplifier efficiency
5G brings higher data rates and a need for more efficient power amplifiers. Understand and calculate a PA's efficiency. Radio communication systems steadily improve data rates and overall system performance. With that higher performance comes increasing pressure on power consumption. A recent industry report [Ref 1] concluded that power consumed by a typical 5G base…
By Bob Witte | July 7, 2020
More antennas, faster data transfer
MIMO and beamforming provide increased data rates than you can get using single, omnidirectional signals. Antennas convert between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in a metal conductor. In early communication system, antennas were often quite simple, perhaps just a half-wave dipole constructed of wire. We usually just had one antenna per…
By Jim Olsen, Microchip Technology | June 12, 2020
5G changes network timing architectures
Radio-access networks are changing from a single unit into a distributed system, which impacts how networks keep time. Precision Time Protocol will distribute timing information, keeping the units synchronized in time and phase.
By Bob Witte | June 4, 2020
OFDMA improves spectrum use in Wi-Fi 6
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access increases the efficiency of a crowded Wi-Fi channel. The access point is in control, managing who gets bandwidth and when.
By Sigurd Schelstraete, ON Semiconductor | May 15, 2020
New regulations for unlicensed 6 GHz operation – explained
The FCC has made a swath of 1200 MHz available for Wi-Fi. Unlike an invasive species, Wi-Fi must respect the rights of services that already use the frequency band. Here's why and how.
By Ryan Orsi, WatchGuard Technologies | April 22, 2020
What every engineer can do about 5G/Wi-Fi handoff security
Security in handoffs from cellular base stations to Wi-Fi needs help. Make your voice heard. 5G is rolling out across the world such as speed, reliability, and network efficiency. 5G is unlocking or improving use cases such as IoT communications at the edge, high quality video, lower latency to support industry controls and automation, highly-accurate…
By Bob Witte | April 16, 2020
The basics of 5G's modulation, OFDM
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing has become the standard modulation format for 5G New Radio. Lean how OFDM works and how it's used. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is an efficient modulation format used in modern wireless communication systems including 5G. OFDM combines the benefits of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) to produce…