As 5G begins its rollout across the globe – a generation of wireless communications technology that brought equal parts fascination and scepticism – researchers are turning their attention to the next generation of wireless communications, that fabled thing: 6G.
The work of Cornell University researchers has seen the development of a semiconductor chip that will facilitate smaller devices to operate at the frequencies required for 6G technology, taking a step closer to a wireless communication seemingly far in the future.
6G networks are expected to be the revolutionary successor to 5G, capable of using higher frequencies and providing higher capacity and lower latency. 6G networks are anticipated to improve areas including imaging, presence technology and location awareness, with expectations to be applied to use cases such as healthcare, smart agriculture, digital twins and collaborative robots (‘cobots’).
In a sign of what may to be come, in March of this year NVIDIA announced a 6G research Cloud platform, offering a platform for researchers to accelerate the developments of 6G technologies that will connect devices with Cloud infrastructures, supporting autonomous vehicles, smart spaces, cobots and educational experiences.
“The massive increase in connected devices and host of new applications in 6G will require a vast leap in wireless spectral efficiency in radio communications,” said Ronnie Vasishta, Senior Vice President of Telecom at NVIDIA in the press release. “Key to achieving this will be the use of AI, a software-defined, full-RAN reference stack and next-generation digital twin technology.”
The platform leverages digital twin to enable researchers to simulate 6G systems, a softw-are defined full-RAN stack to offer flexibility to customise, program and test 6G networks in real time and a framework that leverages NVIDIA GPUs for generating and capturing data.
In the press release, Charlie Zhang, Senior Vice President of Samsung Research America spoke about the “convergence” of 6G and AI in envisioning a technological landscape with the power to transform.
The next generation of wireless communication requires greater bandwidth at higher frequencies but also needs more time, Cornell University explained in a press release about the research.
A paper was published on the findings in the journal Nature,‘Ultra-Compact Quasi-True-Time-Delay for Boosting Wireless Channel-Capacity’.
The majority of wireless communications operate at frequencies below 6 gigahertz (GHz), and technology companies have been striving to develop 6G cellular communications that operate above 20GHz where there is more available bandwidth and data can flow quicker.
“Every frequency in the communication band goes through different time delays,” explained Bal Govind, Lead Author. “The problem we’re addressing is decades old – that of transmitting high-bandwidth data in an economical manner so signals of all frequencies line up at the right place and time.”
“It’s not just building something with enough delay, it’s building something with enough delay where you still have a signal at the end,” added Senior Author Alyssa Apsel, IBM Professor of Engineering and Director of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Cornell Engineering. “The trick is that we were able to do it without enormous loss.”
Previously, phase-shifting circuits caused delays, but they have limits, particularly with wideband signals, which can experience “beam squint” due to phase discrepancies between high and low frequencies. Implementing time delays in small chips for smartphones poses significant challenges.
To address this, Govind worked with postdoctoral researcher and co-author Thomas Tapen to develop a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) design capable of tuning time delays across a broad 14 GHz bandwidth with high precision.
They used 3D reflectors to create a “tunable transmission line,” resulting in a compact integrated circuit that significantly increases channel capacity compared to conventional methods. As a result, it offers faster data transmission and reception, challenging the industry’s reliance on phase delay and potentially revolutionising communications technology.
“I think one of our major innovations is really the question: Do you need to build it this way?” Apsel said. “If we can boost the channel capacity by a factor of 10 by changing one component, that is a pretty interesting game-changer for communications.”
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