Tuesday 14 May 2013

Samsung announces world's first 5G mmwave mobile technology

Samsung develops adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimetre-wave frequency bands for outdoor cellular communications

London, UK - May 13th, 2013 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., announced today that it has successfully developed the world's first adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimetre-wave Ka bands for cellular communications. The new technology sits at the core of 5G mobile communications system and will provide data transmission up to several hundred times faster than current 4G networks.

5G mobile communications technology is the next generation of the existing 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network technology. 5G will be capable of providing an ever present Gbps experience to subscribers and offers data transmission speeds of up to several tens of Gbps per base station.

"The millimetre-wave band is the most effective solution to recent surges in wireless internet usage," said ChangYeong Kim, Executive Vice President of Samsung Electronics and Head of Digital Media & Communication (DMC) R&D Centre. "Samsung's recent success in developing the adaptive array transceiver technology has brought us one step closer to the commercialisation of 5G mobile communications in the millimetre-wave bands."

Samsung Secures Millimetre-Wave Transceiver Technologies for 5G Cellular Networks

The implementation of a high-speed 5G cellular network requires a broad band of frequencies, much like an increased water flow requires a wider pipe. While it was a recognised option, it has been long believed that the millimetre-wave bands had limitations in transmitting data over long distances due to its unfavourable propagation characteristics.

However, Samsung's new adaptive array transceiver technology has proved itself as a successful solution. It transmits data in the millimetre-wave band at a frequency of 28 GHz at a speed of up to 1.056 Gbps to a distance of up to 2 kilometres. The adaptive array transceiver technology, using 64 antenna elements, can be a viable solution for overcoming the radio propagation loss at millimetre-wave bands, much higher than the conventional frequency bands ranging from several hundred MHz to several GHz.

Samsung plans to accelerate the research and development of 5G mobile communications technologies, including adaptive array transceiver at the millimetre-wave bands, to commercialise those technologies by 2020.