In 2021, China's 5G+AIoT has made great progress. According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by the end of 2021, the total number of 5G base stations built and opened in the mainland has reached 1.425 million, and the total number of 5G base stations accounts for more than 60% of the world. On the other hand, with the issuance of the "5G Application "Sail" Action Plan", the focus of China's 5G construction has shifted from network coverage to deep empowerment, marking that 5G will go deep into the digital transformation process of thousands of industries.
At the beginning of 2022, 5G+AIoT will shoulder a new historical mission and start again! The "National Integrated Big Data Center System" has completed the overall layout design, and the "East Number West Calculation" project is about to be fully launched. As a "south-to-north water diversion" and "west-to-east gas transmission" project in the mainland's digital construction, the significance of "counting the east and counting the west" is self-evident. As a channel for carrying data in the "East Counting West Calculation", communication technology naturally has a very heavy responsibility. The communication infrastructure will surely usher in a comprehensive upgrade in the new round of construction and release great potential.
The true core capabilities of 5G are being unleashed
From a technical point of view, with the landing of the 5G R16 standard and the intensive formulation of the R17 standard, the true core capabilities of 5G are being fully released.
First, let's look at 5G millimeter wave technology. The millimeter wave spectrum range is above 24 GHz, compared to the maximum bandwidth of 100 MHz in the Sub-6 GHz band, which widens this "channel" to 200 MHz-1000 MHz. It is like changing the original 4 lanes to 16 lanes, which greatly increases the number of vehicles that can be passed. In addition, millimeter wave has two advantages that are difficult for the industry to reject - lower latency and high-precision positioning.
Thanks to the advantages of subcarrier spacing, the air interface delay of 5G mmWave is only 1ms, the round-trip delay is 4ms, and the delay is only a quarter of that of Sub-6 GHz. And because the millimeter wave wavelength is shorter, its positioning accuracy can also reach the centimeter level or even lower. These advantages are like "skyfall Ganlin" for scenarios with high personnel density, high latency requirements and high positioning accuracy requirements.
For example, at the National Stadium, which held the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games, 5G millimeter wave can ensure the communication needs of tens of thousands of people in the venue, while also taking into account the real-time ultra-high-definition transmission on the spot. In addition, 5G millimeter wave will also have great achievements in low-latency scenarios such as transportation hubs and industrial Internet, such as automatic driving, which requires both low latency and high-precision positioning to achieve.
A large number of industrial applications require high-precision positioning technology to play a powerful role, such as industrial AGVs, asset tracking, etc. The accuracy of 4G base station positioning and WiFi positioning, which are commonly used for indoor communications, is generally low, usually 3-10 meters. Such positioning accuracy is far from enough for IIoT applications. To this end, 5G has added a positioning function in the R16 version, which uses the MIMO multi-beam feature to define indoor positioning technologies such as signal round-trip time (RTT), signal arrival time difference (TDOA), arrival angle measurement method (AoA), and departure angle measurement method (AoD) based on the cellular cell, which greatly improves the indoor positioning accuracy. 5G can extend the carrier wave to the millimeter wave band, and because the millimeter wave wavelength is short, its positioning accuracy can reach centimeters or even lower.
In addition to millimeter wave, 5G LAN technology can not be ignored. As can be seen from the name, 5G LAN is a local area network or private network based on 5G interconnection. For scenarios such as wired and multiple network deployment factories and campuses, 5G LAN can achieve anytime, anywhere access for all devices through a single network. Moreover, 5G LAN can reduce network deployment costs and improve network security while providing higher security and privacy with simple networking, which is of great benefit to many enterprises that "do not leave the factory".
There is also 5G+TSN. Many consumers may not have a direct feeling for 1ms delay, 1 microsecond jitter and 99.9999% reliability, but in specific industry application scenarios, these "dry" data in the eyes of others are extremely critical. For example, self-driving cars on the road, sophisticated industrial control in factories, remote surgery thousands of miles apart, AGV cars with high synergy in logistics, and new power grids that strive for excellence all require high-precision timing networks to ensure.
5G network slicing is also worth mentioning. "Slicing" is the key to realizing 5G network connection to all things, through the extraction of the characteristics and needs of different scenarios, and then using refined means to provide different latency, broadband, billing methods and other services "according to local conditions", thereby reducing network coverage costs and improving connection efficiency.
Finally, RedCap is the most noteworthy of several evolutions of the R17 standard. RedCap, which is essentially a cropping of 5G networks, is now also seen as a technology to fill the gap in 5G coverage. On the one hand, RedCap complements the connection of the 5G medium-rate scenario to meet the needs of the three major scenarios of smart wearable, industrial wireless sensor network and video surveillance for speed, cost, power consumption, etc.; on the other hand, RedCap is based on the "lightweight" design, which opens the 5G Internet of Things market from the cost price and promotes the diversified development of 5G.
It can be seen that the key performance technology of 5G+AIoT is laying a solid communication foundation for the digital and intelligent world of the Internet of Everything, and supporting the "East Number West Computing" project to help build a large number of connection power and computing power foundation. Of course, how to ensure the release of the potential of 5G+AIoT key performance technologies before this time is also a top priority.
Modules are one of the key "bases" for building a world of digital intelligence
The digital intelligence world of interconnection built by 5G+AIoT is the ultimate pursuit of data acquisition, communication networks and power computing. Among them, data collection, as the most basic part of the Internet of Things, is the key to fully releasing the capabilities of 5G+AIoT.
First, the world of digital intelligence woven by the true Internet of Things begins with data collection. As the nerve ending of the Internet of Things, the terminal sensor is responsible for uploading the collected massive IoT data to the cloud through the communication network; and the cloud will analyze and process the massive IoT data collected and reported, build a reasonable algorithm model, and issue instructions; finally, it is transmitted to the smart device through the terminal, and then realize the final message issuance and control, and feed back the intelligence of production and life.
Second, in any IoT application, data acquisition is close to the user's side. There are thousands of industries in the digital intelligence world, so it has created different scenarios and different businesses for terminal products, which is why the upstream industry needs to continue to polish on the end side and meet the continuous market demand with more diversified, better performance and higher cost performance products.
It can be seen that whether the key performance technologies of 5G+AIoT can be fully released not only need to consider the deployment and technical iteration of the network side, but also need to sink this responsibility into the hands of the players on the side. On the end side, the module, as a "bridge" connecting chips and industries, has played a key role in the release of key performance of 5G+AIoT.
Wireless modules have their own technological highlands. Wireless modules not only integrate various components such as baseband chips, RF chips, memory chips, capacitor resistors, etc. into a circuit board, but also provide standard interfaces, but also need to be redesigned and integrated, and support various 5G key performance technologies such as 5G millimeter wave, 5G LAN, RedCap, 5G+TSN, and 5G network slicing. Downstream terminal manufacturers are difficult to integrate and apply new technologies without the help of communication experts. Module manufacturers can use their identity as "communication experts" to help terminal manufacturers quickly develop industry-friendly digital products.
For example, 5G millimeter wave is favored by the industry because of its advantages of low latency, large bandwidth, high-precision positioning and exquisite volume, but due to the frequency band it is in, there are also problems in the RF devices and antenna parts of the terminal industry chain, such as challenges brought by key technologies such as integration, performance, power consumption, heat dissipation, and sensitivity.
In this regard, module manufacturers not only need to continuously change and accumulate in the process, but also need to always pay attention to 5G new technologies and make technical reserves in advance. As the world's leading provider of wireless communication module solutions for the Internet of Things, Guanghetong has always paid attention to the latest communication technologies for many years and made reserves of 5G+AIoT key performance technologies.
Guanghetong joins hands with industry partners to create a "smart world"
As early as one year after the commercial use of 5G in 2020, when The deployment of 5G millimeter wave has not yet begun in China, Guanghetong has included millimeter wave products in the key planning and development plan.
Guanghetong 5G Sub-6 GHz module FM160 series is also the first R16 module to fully obtain ANATEL certification, its biggest highlight is the support for 5G LAN, high-precision positioning, 5G +TSN time-sensitive network and other 5G key technical features, providing efficient and powerful application support for the industrial Internet, smart power, smart medical care, Internet of Vehicles and other industries with strong demand for low latency, reliability and large bandwidth.
Previously, Guanghetong also launched the SC171 series of 5G smart modules based on Qualcomm's ®QCM6490 Internet of Things solution design, which integrates a high-performance graphics engine and can efficiently calculate and process data, with powerful AI capabilities.
For the 5G RedCap that will be born in R17, Guanghetong has also made advanced deployments. Last year, Guanghetong took the lead in 5G RedCap, launched the research on The RedCap industry standard in advance, and docked product research and development with the R17 standard to meet the needs of the market in the first time in the future.
All in all, China is seeking a better blueprint for the future of life for the world, the invisible and close intelligent connection of all things and the ubiquitous and excellent computing power will be in the future with the development of 5G + AIoT technology and the construction of the era of "East Number West Calculation", starting from all walks of life, comprehensively and profoundly changing the way of human life and production. As a key link in the digital industry chain, Guanghetong is ready to contribute to the joint construction of a smarter digital world.