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5G Brings New Testing Challenges

Millimeter-wave and beamforming capabilities present the biggest testing challenges.

By: Bryon Moyer, Semiconductor Engineering (as published on Semiconductor Engineering)

As 5G nears commercial reality, makers of chips and systems that will support 5G will need to take on the standard burden of characterizing and testing their systems to ensure both performance and regulatory adherence.

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and beamforming capabilities present the biggest testing challenges.

5G is expected to be 10 to 100 times faster than 4G, and potentially as much as 1,000 times faster with 1% of 4G’s latency. That kind of speed will place higher demands on the testing regime. RF testing for cellular chips and systems is not new, but the focus until recently has been on, at most, 6 GHz. The low-GHz range is crowded, but the jump to mmWave is large, moving straight from 6 GHz to 28 GHz. The highest anticipated frequencies are in the 40- or even 60-GHz range.