Why does 5G design need ANSYS simulation?

The birth of 5G technology indicates that wireless communication will show us an extraordinary world. It is synonymous with profit growth in many fields at present, such as consumer electronics, the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced assisted driving systems (ADAS), telecommunications, entertainment, medical treatment, and transportation. However, the ensuing related engineering problems are equally important.

5G technology can be called a new generation of disruptive technological revolution, which will integrate and connect billions of devices with the required data through the ubiquitous ultra-fast computing network, promote economic growth in many fields, and create brand-new products And services, and make our existing life face a radical change.

To achieve the strategic goals of 5G, we must build it. To this end, we must rethink the design of electronic components, equipment, and infrastructure and find ways to operate and interconnect in extreme environments efficiently. For example, with the help of high-frequency millimeter wave spectrum, massive MIMO, small base stations, beamforming, and beam tracking/steering functions, 5G network infrastructure can provide higher speed, bandwidth, coverage.

However, 5G also makes the design of system-on-chip (SoC) increasingly complex because it not only needs to manage massive amounts of antenna data but also needs to support a variety of rich functions, such as large-scale machine type communication (MTC), enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable communication (URC) and low latency, etc. SoC needs to significantly improve its processing power in an environment with limited power and limited heat dissipation.

Before taking advantage of millimeter wave technology, we must first expand the sub-6 GHz system and use frequency band aggregation to obtain 5G speeds through existing infrastructure. This requires multiple frequency bands to operate simultaneously, which leads to crosstalk and heating problems. 5G advanced processing methods require high linearity RF front-end, higher integration, more filtering, and RF switching. Then, with the advent of millimeter waves, engineers will use simulation to solve temperature sensitivity, efficiency, and circuit density problems.

These are severe challenges! A universal engineering platform is needed to simulate the multiple physics and technologies that make up these 5G designs to meet these challenges. The platform can use advanced high-performance computing and be deployed across the entire enterprise. It can help designers and engineering experts collaborate to develop systems with 5G capabilities. The ANSYS design platform is able to fully meet these requirements and provide users with the simulation solutions needed to realize 5G engineering innovation.

5G is not a simple 4G evolution but a series of significant changes that strengthen system-level functions at one time. These functions include:
• Increased spectrum access by 10 times
• Integrate licensed and unlicensed spectrum
• Large-scale deployment of small cells
• Brand new network architecture—Network Function Virtualization (NFV), edge computing, network slicing
• Support IoT (and communication between machines)

Smart antennas: beamforming

Antenna beamforming in 5G can increase wireless applications\’ capacity and data rate. MIMO beamforming technology can use multipath propagation and spatial multiplexing between the base station and user equipment (UE). Correct beamforming and beam control can optimize the connection and reduce the risk of disconnection. Therefore, the antenna system must be carefully designed and simulated in order to strictly control the phase between the units, the influence of the radome and the installation platform, and thereby ensure that the performance is moderately degraded due to potential work unit failures.

Carrier Aggregation (CA)

The latest 5G standard can increase the number of CALTE frequency bands used for single-user connections and increase the transmission bandwidth, but this will increase the complexity of the RF front-end and increase the probability of interference. More and more high-sensitivity filters are used in UEs and base stations to separate sub-carriers and signals. Bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators, filters, and oscillators are installed side by side and end-to-end on the radio frequency sub-components. The evaluation of the electromagnetic coupling between them is the key to the success of these front-end designs.

Thermal problem

In an installation environment that is not suitable for active heat dissipation, the integration of various modules into the RF front-end will generate a lot of heat. While avoiding the unreasonable cost and weight of forced air cooling or liquid cooling, the base station antenna must also emit too much heat to ensure the safe operation of the electronic equipment in the base station. At this time, the temperature change properties of the electronic system must be checked to minimize the heat and ensure that it is within safe operating limits.

Edge computing

Data processing will be performed on base stations or edge nodes to provide use cases and applications that require real-time or near real-time responses to events and scenarios. As the density of devices and users in 5G networks increases, edge nodes will provide mission-critical or user experience scenarios. When applications in cars or video streams cannot afford the round-trip time for processing requests to and from the cloud (approximately 250 ms), these situations require a delay of no more than 1 ms. Decision-making functions can be performed at edge nodes, and ANSYS can provide simulation solutions and products for the following areas:

• The internet

• System on Chip (SoC)

• Mobile terminal/UE mobile terminal

• Data center solutions