RF-FE Clause Samples

RF-FE. For the design of the RF-FE [14] the following requirements are taken into account:  Operational bandwidth. Based on the availability of commercial components as well as licence for 5G mmW system testing in EU and Korea, the operational bandwidth of the RF-FE is set in the 26.5 -29.3 GHz band.  Time-division-duplex (TDD) communication: This is a system requirement determined by the fact that mmW communication protocol and frame structure.  Power consumption: Low power consumption is an important criterion in the design of the RF-FE. Key issue it to minimize power consumption with respect to long range and with poor availability of power amplifiers.  Beamforming: this is necessary requirement beamsteering/adaptation. It impacts on performance, capability/limitations, costs and consumption.  RF beamformer logic: this is necessary requirement to allow beamforming. It also considers timing interface with the DFE.  Automatic Gain Control: this is necessary at the receiver side to allow extended dynamic range, thus solving near-far effects in case of mobility. Based on the above requirements, the following specifications are determined. One RF-FE is needed for each antenna unit. For instance, in Figure 13, it is illustrated the architecture of the RF-FE unit including two RF beamformers based on digitally controlled phase-shifters. It can be noticed that frequency up/down conversion is used to achieve and tune the desired carrier frequency in the 26.5 -29.3 GHz band. Also, switched are used to separate TX and RX paths, thus, enabling TDD. Finally, to minimize energy consumptions, implementation cost and form-factor, several components are shared between the TX and RX paths.