5G Base Stations: Are Filters and NOR Flash Keeping Up?

5G new infrastructure is booming! It is highly favored by the electronics industry chain and investors. According to a report released by GSMA on March 17, “The Mobile Economy China 2020”, it is predicted that by 2020, the number of 5G connections in China will account for 70% of the global total. In March, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology estimated that from 2020 to 2025, 5G commercialization will drive over 8 trillion yuan in new consumption. In order to meet the explosive demand, the 5G new infrastructure has been fully launched.

▲ Live Replay

On March 17, the highly anticipated second batch of wireless main equipment procurement bid by China Mobile in 2020 was announced, with a huge order of 37.1 billion yuan for 232,143 base stations awarded to four main equipment suppliers: Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, and China Information Communication Technology Group. The three major operators have also increased their investment in 5G, with the latest disclosed data showing that the total capital expenditure of the three major operators in 2020 is approximately 334.8 billion yuan, with 5G-related investment accounting for about 180.3 billion yuan, more than 50% of the total capital expenditure.

On April 2, a live broadcast hosted by Electronic Enthusiasts titled “5G New Infrastructure is Coming, The Escape Route for Semiconductor and Electronic Components” successfully held an online interactive communication event with three heavyweight guests, attracting 22,867 participants.

This live broadcast was hosted by Zhang Ying, Executive Deputy Editor of Electronic Enthusiasts, and invited Mr. Hu Yingtian, Deputy General Manager and MKT Director of China Communication Technology, Mr. Tao Zhen, Senior Marketing Manager of Qorvo, and Mr. Xue Ting, Marketing Manager of Gigadevice’s storage division to discuss four major topics: “What market opportunities will 5G new infrastructure bring to suppliers and upstream component manufacturers? What challenges does 5G indoor coverage face and what small base station solutions are available? What are the market demand points for RF devices and NOR Flash in 5G base stations and terminals? What new development trends will 5G base stations and 5G phones have in the next three years?” They shared insights and exciting viewpoints on the development of the semiconductor device industry driven by 5G new infrastructure.

What market opportunities will 5G new infrastructure bring to upstream component manufacturers?

Mr. Tao Zhen, Senior Marketing Manager of Qorvo, stated that in 2020, China’s 5G new infrastructure has begun, and the current construction period will start with 5G infrastructure. In the future, the three major operators will have more plans to promote the 5G market to stimulate more updates and replacements related to 5G mobile phones.

Tao Zhen elaborated on the growth opportunities in the RF device market brought by the 5G new infrastructure. 1. The demand for RF devices in 5G base stations is rapidly increasing, and the GaN-based process may gradually replace the existing mainstream silicon-based LTMOS.

The tender for 230,000 base stations by China Mobile, along with the 5G tenders from China Telecom and China Unicom, shows that compared to 4G LTE spectrum applications, China Mobile’s 2.6GHz, China Unicom’s 3.5GHz, and the 4.8GHz shared by broadcast and mobile will be the main operating platforms for the current 5G new base stations.

The new spectrum will bring new demands for RF devices. Due to special requirements for transmission power, 5G base stations have higher demands for PA (Power Amplifier). From a process perspective, the PA used in 5G base stations, based on GaN technology, may gradually replace the existing mainstream silicon-based LTMOS. GaN is becoming the mainstream for power amplifier applications in 5G base stations due to its advantages of high frequency and high output power. Major 5G base station suppliers such as Huawei, ZTE, and Ericsson are adopting GaN-based PAs, which presents a significant market opportunity for RF semiconductor suppliers in the base station sector.

2. In the development of 5G mobile phones, the addition of new frequency bands and the collaborative upgrade of existing communication capabilities will lead to a substantial increase in the number of frequency bands supported by mobile phones, thereby significantly boosting the demand for RF filters per device.

The most significant change in 5G mobile phones is the increase in speed. The number of frequency bands supported by 5G mobile phones is double that of 4G LTE. The 5G terminal standard supports a downlink of 4×4 MIMO and an uplink of 2×2 MIMO, while currently only some high-end 4G LTE phones support 4×4 MIMO, with most only supporting 2×2 MIMO. The integration trend of RF front-end devices in 5G is becoming increasingly evident. In high-end 5G flagship phones, an integrated RF front-end device includes power amplifiers, filters, duplexers, low-noise amplifiers, and switches, all based on 5G applications.

Mr. Hu Yingtian, Deputy General Manager and MKT Director of China Communication Technology, believes that the 5G market is a definite market opportunity. 5G will last for about 10 years, and most of the market will belong to domestic upstream and downstream enterprises.

China’s three major operators have fully launched over 180 billion yuan in 5G infrastructure, marking the first double-digit investment growth since 2016. According to estimates, from 2020 to 2022, the number of 5G base stations in the Chinese market will be 500,000-800,000, 1 million, and 1.13 million, respectively, indicating a massive scale.

For example, the transmission part involved in 5G base stations, including wavelength division multiplexing, semi-wavelength division multiplexing, and future full-active wavelength division multiplexing, all represent confirmed market opportunities.

5G commercialization will significantly drive the demand for optical modules, which are core components in 5G base stations and transmission equipment—especially the market demand for 25G and 40G optical modules is genuine.

Currently, China’s operators mainly build 5G networks based on macro base stations. A 5G base station requires three AAUs (Active Antenna Units), which include RF modules, antennas, filters, and PAs. Filters and power amplifiers are primarily dominated by international manufacturers, representing bottleneck technologies. If Chinese manufacturers can achieve breakthroughs in technology and products in these areas, significant market growth opportunities can be expected in the next 5-10 years.

According to Mr. Xue Ting, Marketing Manager of Gigadevice’s storage division, opportunities are given to prepared component manufacturers. Half of the global 5G base station market share is in China, and domestic component manufacturers must seize the opportunity. There are new requirements for chips in 5G base stations, such as the flash memory chips used in 5G base stations, which need to consider storage capacity, reliability, and long-term supply capability, providing a wealth of market opportunities.

What are the technical advantages and characteristics of 5G small base stations in indoor coverage?

“The development of the mobile communication industry has spawned new indoor coverage technologies, and China Communication Technology has been working on small base stations for more than 10 years. Indoor coverage technology has entered its fourth generation. The first generation was analog repeaters, where China Communication Technology proposed the Turkey turnkey solution; the second generation was digital repeaters based on software-defined radio technology; the third generation was MDAS and integrated micro base station solutions based on wired/fiber transmission; and the fourth generation is the digital indoor distribution solution for small base stations,” said Mr. Hu Yingtian, Deputy General Manager and MKT Director of China Communication Technology. “Operators have made significant investments in indoor coverage, but the actual results have not met expectations.”

The thinking behind 5G network construction has undergone fundamental changes. In response to market changes, the base station solutions from China Communication Technology have also undergone significant changes.

Mr. Hu Yingtian pointed out that there are three mainstream solutions: First, for the 2.6GHz of China Mobile and the 2.1GHz of China Unicom and China Telecom, the 5G networking mainly adopts the traditional DAS solution, similar to the previous 2G/3G/4G RRU combined indoor distribution solution, which will occupy more than 50% of the market scale, using high-power RRUs and passive devices; the second solution is an outdoor-to-indoor scheme, where outdoor base stations cover indoor scenarios, occupying 30% of the market, which is cost-effective and easy to coordinate with property management; the third is based on small base stations’ digital indoor distribution solution, which accounts for about 20% of the market scale.Within this 20%, there are two types of solutions: one is the distributed micro base station solution from major equipment manufacturers, and the other is the small base station solution from traditional small base station manufacturers. Depending on different application scenarios, these three mainstream solutions will be applied accordingly.

What advantages do international filter manufacturers have in the field of 5G base station filters?

Mr. Tao Zhen stated that as an international RF semiconductor company, Qorvo is not focused on traditional applications of cavity filters and ceramic filters in base stations. Qorvo’s products adopt acoustic process-based filter technology, focusing on the development of SAW filters and BAW filters.

The best application range for SAW filters is below 2.0GHz, with a power of less than 33dBm. Currently, SAW technology has made significant progress and can even be applied to the 2.4GHz band. However, in contrast, BAW filters can operate up to 20GHz, with power approaching 40dBm (10W), and are insensitive to temperature changes, having advantages such as “low insertion loss and high out-of-band attenuation”.

Qorvo’s miniaturized acoustic filters are primarily applied in mobile phones. Acoustic filters have always aimed to enter the base station sector, from traditional 3G to 4G macro base stations or small base stations. The most significant issue is the power handling capability of acoustic filters compared to cavity or ceramic filters, which is a crucial concern.

In the future, it may be possible to introduce acoustic process-based filters in small 5G base stations. Currently, we see that acoustic filters with output capabilities of 5W or 10W are under development.Although currently, 5G macro base stations primarily use cavity filters or ceramic filters, in the future, acoustic filters will likely capture a certain market share. With the continuous improvement of the power output capabilities of acoustic filters, including Qorvo and other emerging domestic filter manufacturers, there are ongoing explorations on how to enhance the power of acoustic filters.

In the future, with improvements in acoustic filter technology and enhanced power output capabilities, in addition to the 5G mobile phone sector, traditional SAW or BAW filters can be applied in 5G macro base stations or small base stations.

What market demands and technical challenges do 5G base stations and terminals bring to NOR Flash?

Manager Xue Ting believes that the first wave of demand for NOR Flash from 5G will come from macro base stations, considering that the data volume of 5G base stations has significantly increased compared to 4G base stations, and the programs are becoming increasingly complex, leading to a noticeable increase in storage capacity requirements for NOR Flash.

Second, the application scenarios for NOR Flash in 5G macro base stations are primarily in AAUs (Access Units). AAUs are mainly used in outdoor scenarios, where the outdoor environment is complex, with industrial environments ranging from 50 degrees in summer to -30 degrees in winter. NOR Flash that can operate under industrial-level temperatures (-40℃ to +125℃) is naturally the first choice for base stations. For NOR Flash, its reliability and performance at high and low temperatures are critical.

In terms of NOR Flash supply for 5G base stations, Gigadevice has three major advantages, which Manager Xue Ting emphasized:

First, the entire supply chain is domestic, actively responding to the demand for localization.

Second, Gigadevice has large-scale mass production experience in the NOR Flash product line. Through years of R&D, Gigadevice’s rich SPI NOR Flash product line offers a range of products from 512Kb to 1Gb, covering all capacity types in the NOR Flash market,with voltages covering 1.8V, 2.5V, 3.3V, and wide voltage products, providing high performance, low power consumption, low cost, and high reliability for different application market needs. This is especially true for large-capacity FLASH applications in 5G base stations’ AAUs.

Third, NOR Flash’s reliability and performance at high and low temperatures can meet various customer needs.

Manager Xue Ting stated that Gigadevice’s NOR Flash is a platform product, with applications not only in 5G base stations but also in 5G mobile phones, CPE, smart watches, TWS earphones, and IoT NB-IoT products, as well as in transmission-layer devices, components, or systems that will also use NOR Flash. Gigadevice’s cumulative shipment of NOR Flash has exceeded 10 billion units, and in 2019, the shipment of NOR Flash exceeded 2.8 billion units.

What are the new development trends for 5G base stations and 5G mobile phones?

Mr. Hu Yingtian, Deputy General Manager and MKT Director of China Communication Technology, is optimistic about the growth potential of 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market. He summarized two development trends for 5G mobile phones: First, the technology of mobile phone baseband chips needs to continuously match with base station technology, enabling users’ phones to be more intelligent and better recognize the strength of base station signals, as well as enhancing the anti-counterfeiting function of base stations. With the addition of AI technology, the anti-counterfeiting function of base stations is improving, and Huawei phones have a clear advantage in this regard. This is also a highlight of technological differentiation in mobile phones; second, 5G smart phones becoming the future direction, with the support of AI technology, reducing phone power consumption, and other intelligent technologies driving the smart evolution of 5G mobile phones.

Manager Xue Ting from Gigadevice is optimistic about the market potential of 5G base stations, believing that two major trends cannot be ignored. First, the deployment points for 5G networks will continue to increase. The 5G spectrum will also diversify. Second, while deploying 5G macro base stations, how to handle signals from small base stations and indoors.

As we enter the intelligent era, how will 5G mobile phones evolve? Manager Xue Ting believes that future 5G mobile phones will incorporate more intelligent functions, such as 5G phones equipped with TOF cameras. With the development of the pandemic, infrared temperature measurement cameras will also be included in the future, and the arrival of 5G will drive upgrades of more new types of 5G external devices.

Mr. Tao Zhen, Senior Marketing Manager of Qorvo, pointed out that from the perspective of 5G base stations, the new 5G spectrum features high bandwidth and high frequency, including future 5G millimeter-wave spectrum. The biggest technical driving force for RF devices in 5G base stations is that PA based on GaN technology will gradually replace PA based on silicon technology.

Currently, smartphones use small, high-performance acoustic filters, while 5G phones mainly use surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters. Since SAW only supports frequency bands below 2G, 5G-sub 6G will lead to an increase in the use of BAW/FBAR suitable for high-frequency bands above 2G. With the deployment of new 2.6GHz, 3.5GHz, and future 4.8GHz spectrums by the three major operators, BAW filters will be used more in 5G mobile phones.

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