Live cycle 5G mobile testing

NEC and Analog Devices Develop MIMO Antenna for 5G

  • NEC Corporation and Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) announced that they have teamed up to design a 5G Network Massive MIMO Antenna Radio Unit for Rakuten Mobile.

 
The radio unit adopts ADI’s fourth-generation wideband RF transceiver solution to achieve high precision Massive MIMO and possesses a 5G open vRAN (virtual RAN) interface corresponding to Rakuten Mobile’s end-to-end fully virtualized cloud-native mobile network. It delivers large capacity transmission with high efficiency by using 3.7GHz frequency Massive MIMO and digital beamforming technology.

Massive MIMO (Massive multiple-input, multiple-output, or massive MIMO) is an extension of MIMO, which essentially groups together antennas at the transmitter and receiver to provide better throughput and better spectrum efficiency.

Digital Beamforming Technology enables to precisely manipulate the gain and phase of multiple antenna signals in order to form intensively to a specific direction and to deliver stable radio waves over longer distances.

According to ADI, the cloud-native virtual network heralds a major shift in how communications providers can offer high-speed internet access worldwide, at significantly lower costs, made possible without the maintenance, upkeep, repair and labor costs associated with the physical infrastructure that hinders conventional networks. NEC has already started shipping the 5G Network Massive MIMO Antenna Radio Unit to Rakuten Mobile.

ADI’s fourth-generation wideband RF transceiver integrates quad channel transmitters, receivers and Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) in a single chip. The radio is fully software reconfigurable and covers all sub-6GHz 5G frequency bands.

NEC’s 5G equipment utilizes highly accurate digital beamforming for efficient high-capacity transmission. The system also features seamless installation, achieved through circuit integration.