As cellular networks evolve and customers demand more from the existing infrastructure, we examine the developments being made at an equipment level. The Future Network spoke with Anders Storm, CEO of the Swedish semiconductor manufacturer about advances in antenna design, developments in the fibre market, mmWave solutions for fixed wireless access, new approaches to Wi-Fi, and how the various communication service providers are converging to enable the robust networks of the future.
The Future Network: Please introduce yourself and your company.
Anders Storm, CEO, Sivers IMA:
I have worked in the tele and datacom industry for over twenty years. I have held various leading roles with large corporations like Sony Ericsson, and was VP Engineering and Operations at Birdstep Technologies before joining Sivers IMA as COO.
Sivers IMA Holding AB is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and has been a leading and internationally renowned supplier since 1951. The wholly owned subsidiaries Sivers IMA and CST Global develop, manufacture and sell chips, components, modules and subsystems based on proprietary advanced semiconductor technology in microwave, millimeter and optical semiconductors. We are the obvious partner for equipment and system manufactures as well as large semiconductor suppliers, offering high end cutting-edge solutions. The main focus of the company is the development of Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs) and modules for gigabit fixed wireless access and future 5G access as well as laser diodes for fibre to the home (FTTH) and data centers.
The Future Network: You are involved in the manufacturing of antennas, have you noticed any changes in your customer base / the deployment of these antennas recently?
Anders Storm, CEO, Sivers IMA:
In the fixed wireless access (FWA) market using 60 Ghz active millimetre wave antennas, there is an intense interest in highly integrated circuits (ICs) with good performance and beamforming functionality that are fully integrated with the antennas. Certain types of antennas are required in order to use beamforming, and these can allow the antenna beam to be electrically steered. At the same time it needs to be cost effective, hence that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the network operators can be kept low without sacrificing features, performance or simplicity.
The FCC has recently adopted the frequency regulations to better support low gain beamforming Printed Circuit Board (PCB) type antennas that can act as enablers for the cost efficient deployment of FWA broadband connections to homes and office in need of wireless gigabit speeds.
Figure 1. Sivers IMA beamsteering 2-patch antenna with TRX BF01 60 GHz beamforming RFIC
The Future Network: On the fixed optical connection side, your offering is fibre to the home, how do you see this market developing?
Anders Storm, CEO, Sivers IMA:
The optical market has seen tremendous development over the last decades with one technology breakthrough after the other. The massive demand for more data drives a high demand for gigabit connections and fibre to the home (FTTH), there is a great need for connections carrying 2.5 to 10 gigabits per second. Gigabit passive optical networks (GPON) and 10G-passive optical network (PON) products have had a respectable growth, particularly in India and China, which CST has been providing large amount of distributed feedback lasers (DFBs) to. However, in the fibre market the biggest demand right now seems to be in the so called hyper scale data centres, which are using VCSEL laser chips to secure the growth of cloud services, which incorporate massive amounts of optical connections. It has been estimated that by 2020, 92% of data processing workloads will be processed by cloud data centres versus only 8% by traditional data centres. Driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), the total amount of data created (and not necessarily stored) by any device will reach 600 zettabytes per year by 2020, up from 145 ZB per year in 2015.
Figure 2 Cisco Global Cloud Index, 2015-2020, Data Center growth (Ref 1)
The Future Network: How is mmWave fixed wireless likely to affect the cellular network infrastructure in your opinion?
Anders Storm, CEO, Sivers IMA:
Radio frequency is a natural resource and when more data is required by end users of different sorts, the traffic through the networks increases by the day. Given the rapid development within mobile systems and the way end users adapt to new use patterns and behaviours, the transportation of bits needs to be more effective. As many of the frequency bands in the lower frequencies are congested or are becoming congested, there is a need for frequency bands with better availability. The millimetre wave frequencies are not only fairly unused, they also provide much more bandwidth, which support greater data speeds through the network. Fixed wireless access (FWA) will also be able to offer the fibre in the air at gigabits speeds that is currently needed to support, for example, streaming of ultra high definition television (UHDTV).
Figure 3 Recently opened frequency bands in the US according to FCC
The Future Network: And you are doing some innovative things with Wi-FI, could you please talk us through that briefly?
Anders Storm, CEO, Sivers IMA:
Sivers IMA is focusing on Wi-Fi in higher frequencies, which is part of the IEEE 802.11ad standard. This Wi-Fi solution has access to more bandwidth in the 60 GHz band and offers greater data throughput. 802.11ad is also called WiGig, which is the more common name. The traditional approach has been to develop products that aim for indoor, short haul (10-15 meters) high speed data applications like e.g wireless 4K video streaming, virtual reality (VR) communication, instant wireless data backup etc. As these applications have been somewhat slow to pick up according to the original expectations, these products have been applied to other applications, like the outdoor infrastructure use cases, where the requirements are somewhat different in terms of reach and link budgets.
Sivers IMAs approach has been different, from day one, and we have developed a product tailored towards the tougher requirements of outdoor and infrastructure applications. This means Sivers has integrated features and functionality to make the RF portion more robust against interference and focused on reaching an RF performance that enables longer reach, higher throughput and greater flexibility. When comparing this high-performance approach to the conventional “indoor approach” we are proud to say the feedback from customers is very positive and we are in a good position to address the data and telecom infrastructure market.
Table 1 Comparison between Sivers IMA SiGe based solution with a typical CMOS alternative
The Future Network: Could you give us an outline of your geographical focus and where you are seeing the most interest in your solutions around the world?
Anders Storm, CEO, Sivers IMA:
As WiGig today is of global interest, and Sivers’ focus is global. Looking at the circumstances and conditions in different regions, the most developed market is in the US, where the FCC has adjusted the regulations for the license free 60 GHz band to better fit the need for fixed wireless access, cellular backhaul and similar applications. They have , for example, extended the frequency band from 57-64/66 GHz, which is the normal band in the rest of the world, to 57-71 GHz, which opens enormous possibilities for operators and users of WiGig technology in the US. Sivers’ unique offering is that we are today the only RF chipset that support the whole 57-71 GHz frequency range and therefore, of course, the US is a key market for us.
We believe other regions are likely to follow the US initiative and today we see great momentum also in Asia, whereas Europe still need to develop the RF regulations to open for a broader use of beamforming together with low cost PCB antennas. Even with this limitation right now, there is a great interest in our technology and there are ongoing activities within the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to address these challenges in the near future.
Figure 4. Future networks exemplified by the 5G roadmap according to the European Commission (Ref 2)
The Future Network: How do you see the future of cellular networks evolving?
Anders Storm, CEO, Sivers IMA:
We believe there will be less of a separation between cellular networking, fixed networking and datacom networks. With the technological development we have seen over the last twenty years, there is no doubt that the future networks will be about connecting end user applications with cloud based services and data centres. To do so, the networks will need to support the transport of enormous amount of data. Either it is about uploading or streaming a high definition 4K video, connecting all of the vending machines in a mall to the cloud, or connecting your mobile phone to the nearest base station, everything will relate to data and communication.
To make these physical connections possible, you need solutions that transport the data bits at the lowest possible cost/bit at the same time as you need to support high bandwidths and high speed data transfer. There will be two key technologies for this, fibre and wireless. In the wireless domain, it comes down to frequency as a natural resource and the possibilities to transfer gigabit traffic over the allocated spectrum. With the issues of congestion on lower frequencies (up to 6 GHz) the millimetre wave frequencies (like 28/39/60/70/80 GHz) will be key enablers to meet the demands of connectivity and high speed data in the future networks.
References:
[1] Cisco Global Cloud Index, 2015-2020, Data Center growth
[2] 5G roadmap according to the European Commission
