Core Communications "Fills Blindness" for 5G Base Stations

[Foreword] Technological innovation should be reflected by empowering thousands of industries, and it is more necessary for countless entrepreneurs to present them with new ideas. At the beginning of the new year, the second season of the 5G Entrepreneur Talk interview show, launched by the GSMA 5G Innovation and Investment Platform (5G IN) and supported by technology walkers, is here to share the innovation stories of entrepreneurs.

Source 丨Tech Traveler

Author 丨 Miss Week

Base station deployment is the only way to popularize mobile communication technology, but in the 5G era, operators have ushered in a problem in deploying base stations.

Due to the high frequency band used in 5G, the higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength, and the weaker the diffraction capability, which leads to a small radiation range, limited penetration capacity, and difficulty in indoor coverage, and the traditional macro base station cannot meet the demand; at the same time, the traditional DAS base station coverage method brings operators a series of problems such as engineering implementation, expansion, evolution, management and operation and maintenance, so the industry strongly calls for small base stations (Small Cells) to "fill the blindness".

Small base stations, as the name suggests, are relatively small in size and weigh about 2-10 kg. The transmit power is low, about 100mW-5W. According to the power can be divided into micro base station (MicroCell), PicoCell (PicoCell) and femtoCell and other different types, with flexible deployment, simple construction, simple expansion, convenient management and operation and maintenance advantages, such as in high-speed rail, old residential area transformation, large hotels and other scenes that have been decorated, if the macro base station is rebuilt, the site selection will be more difficult, and the small base station can play its role; in addition, in large office buildings, large arenas, airports, Where there are many people such as high-speed rail stations, small base stations can solve other needs other than calls, and if they are simply covered with macro base stations, the cost is unbearable.

Core Communication was born in such an environment. Founded in 2019, Core Communications is an innovative enterprise focused on providing 5G large-scale distributed small and micro base stations and small-scale macro station core chipsets. Dr. Guoxin Xu, President of Polar Core, said in an exclusive interview with Technology Traveler: "The true depth coverage of 5G requires a new model. ”

More than two years since the company was founded, Polar Core communications launched the world's first 5G base station digital front-end chip that supports the O-RAN standard - Merry UC1040 to adapt to the customization needs of 5G multi-application scenarios, according to the official "UC1040 has been recognized and adopted by most small/micro base station equipment manufacturers".

The following is the interview transcript (compiled) of the technology walker's interview with Xu Guoxin, president of Polar Core Communications, >

Tech Traveler: When Core was founded in 2019, what was the opportunity and reason for its establishment?

Xu Guoxin: 5G in 2019 is exactly the time of great development, when not only the traditional large equipment manufacturers can be laid out, but more small equipment manufacturers can also participate. Because 5G's algorithms and development are extremely difficult, it is necessary to have an underlying platform (chip) to support it. It was in this environment that we founded the company.

Tech Walker: At this point, I was curious about the origin of the name Core.

Xu Guoxin: The "pole" of the core has two meanings, the first is that we want to pursue the physical limit; the second is that we want to give customers an extreme experience in the product.

Tech Walker: Physical limits and extreme experiences, which embodies a corporate vision.

Xu Guoxin: Right.

Tech Walker: Since the company was founded more than two years ago, what are the main achievements so far?

Xu Guoxin: After two years of hard work, we have launched the first chip "Meili UC1040", which is a key chip for the RF unit of 5G base stations. In the tradition is a general device to build, in terms of power consumption, cost and performance can not meet the needs of small base stations or base stations, and Merry UC1040 the entire RF unit in the most important core chip to solve, can make the entire RF unit cost, power consumption and performance have a substantial increase.

Technology Walker: Next, I want to understand the technical problem, we know that the base stations have different scales, such as macro base stations, micro stations, what proportion of these base stations are each? What scenarios apply?

Xu Guoxin: The whole feature of 5G is that various application scenarios are very extensive. Acer stations mainly solve the problem of large-scale coverage, and we are able to communicate seamlessly in many places outdoors. But at the same time, 5G can actually achieve fine coverage, such as indoors, hospitals, factories, etc. These scenes that require a special coverage environment, the traditional macro base station can not be supported, so there must be some characteristic base stations to support.

Tech Walker: What are the direct and indirect impacts of 5G on the development of this industry?

Xu Guoxin: Traditionally, some large enterprises are doing macro base station coverage, after the 5G era, because there are more application scenarios, more base station companies need to participate, at this time there are a variety of base stations, so the traditional sense of large enterprises can not completely cover all the application scenarios of 5G, which has spawned a lot of distinctive base station companies to come in, which is very different from the 2G, 3G, 4G era.

Technology Walker: What are the current market pain points and obstacles that restrict the development of micro stations?

Xu Guoxin: The main reason is still "ecological problems", 5G communications, especially mobile communications, need the accumulation of previous generations, if there is not enough accumulation, the development of these products is very difficult, it takes a period of time to develop technology, cultivate ecology, so that more companies have the opportunity to participate, gradually improve their products, and gradually define its own market segments according to the application scenarios, and then there will be a big development, so the micro station is still in the incubation stage.

Moreover, the big base station can not meet the 5G era of various industry applications, such as indoor coverage, the traditional indoor coverage as long as there is a signal, because its capacity is not so large, and in the 5G era, especially after the future development with AR/VR integration, their demand for data bandwidth capacity is very large, it is not only coverage can solve the problem, so the real depth coverage (including capacity coverage and signal coverage) needs to have a new model.

At this time, a lot of new base station forms have been spawned, such as indoor covered base stations, small base stations, and some industry application base stations, etc., and the industry is calling for such solutions.

Tech Walker: Core is about seeing potential early on and then going to layout.

Xu Guoxin: The chip industry generally leads the development of the industry, and the cycle of chip development is usually about two years, so we must predict the future market and industrial environment, and then develop our own chips.

Technology Walker: You just mentioned the ecology, the development of any technology is inseparable from the co-construction of the ecology, Core has contact and understanding with the GSMA before, do you have any expectations for future cooperation with the GSMA?

Xu Guoxin: GSMA is a global organization, 5G is also a global standard, so the GSMA platform is a very good partner for us, this platform can solve the pain points of Chinese and global equipment manufacturers, which is what we are looking forward to

The reason for the in-depth cooperation with the GSMA, in addition, we have a greater expectation to be able to be international and build a better ecology.

Technology Traveler: Personally, I feel that the current situation of the market is that compared with the IT Internet industry, the number of startups in the field of communications is relatively small, do you think that the law of entrepreneurial innovation in this field is different from that of the IT Internet?

Xu Guoxin: As long as there are new innovation points in the IT industry, it can be quickly established and pushed to users, but innovation in the field of communications is more difficult, it needs to have a certain historical heritage, such as mobile communications from the 1st generation, the 2nd generation, the 3rd generation, the 4th generation to the 5th generation now, there needs to be historical accumulation, which is a very large threshold, so not only to solve the current problems, but also to solve a lot of historical problems, so the historical accumulation is very important.

Technology Traveler: It seems that historical accumulation and ecological cooperation are the golden rules of the communications industry. Finally, as a chip company, how do you view the current lack of cores?

Xu Guoxin: There are four reasons for the lack of cores. The first is that the demand for information technology in the entire market has soared, and more chips are needed at this time; second, new demand such as new energy vehicles needs to be supported; third, the panic stockpiling of many industries has aggravated the tension of production capacity; fourth, the upgrading of the industrial chain or the restructuring of the industrial chain will also exacerbate this problem.

The lack of cores should be solved in about two years.

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