5G Network:Key requirements and features

What is 5G and what it's standards and network,system and device requirements?

Content Highlights

• What is 5G?
• Who standardizes 5G?
• NGMN alliance
• 5G network requirements
• 5G data speed
• 5G system requirements
• 5G device requirements

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5G or 5th generation wireless network system, is the proposed next telecommunications standards beyond the current 4G/IMT-Advanced standards.Rather than higher data transfer speeds,a 5G network aims at higher capacity than current 4G, allowing more number of interconnected devices per area unit. 5G network is not just a mobile communication network offering high speed data. 5G network envisage network of different kinds of devices connected using a standardized network backbone,that includes mobile handsets,computers,IoT(Internet of Things) and other electronic devices and machines.

There is currently no international standard for 5G networks.The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN)defines the requirements that a 5G standard should fulfill.The NGMN Alliance was founded by leading international mobile network operators in 2006. The objective is to ensure that the standards for next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and, ultimately, will satisfy end user demand and expectations.

The vision of the NGMN Alliance is to expand the communications experience by providing a truly integrated and cohesively managed delivery platform that brings affordable mobile broadband services to the end user with a particular focus on 5G while accelerating the development of LTE-Advanced and its ecosystem.

The NGMN Alliance complements and supports standards organizations by providing a coherent view of what mobile operators require. The alliance's project results have been acknowledged by groups such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), Tele Management Forum (TM Forum) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).NGMN provides inputs to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).The ITU coordinates the shared global use of the radio spectrum.

NGMN expects customer requirements in the 2020+ time frame to result in:

• Accommodation of massive traffic growth and high density demand
• A wide variety and variability of services consumed
• New use cases such as machine type communication (M2M, Internet of Things)
• Stringent demands for real time communications

5G network Vision by NGMN alliance read as follows:

“5G is an end-to-end ecosystem to enable a fully mobile and connected society. It empowers value creation towards customers and partners, through existing and emerging use cases, delivered with consistent experience, and enabled by sustainable business models.”

5G Network Communication requirements

NGMN Alliance released white paper on 5th generation mobile network on 17-February-2015.The 5G requirements are derived out of NGMN’s vision on 5G network.An abstract of 5G white paper is given below.

User Experience requirements on a 5G network

Data Rate

Data rate requirements are expressed in terms of user experienced data rate, measured in bit/s at the application layer. The required user experienced data rate should be available in at least 95% of the locations (including at the cell-edge) for at least 95% of the time within the considered environment.Use case specific user experienced data rates up to 1 Gb/s should be supported in some specific environments, like indoor offices, while at least 50 Mb/s shall be available everywhere cost-effectively. 

Latency 
Latency means nothing but 'the delay before a transfer of data begins following an instruction for its transfer'.The 5G system should be able to provide 10 ms E2E latency in general and 1 ms E2E latency for the use cases which require extremely low latency

Mobility 

Mobility refers to the system’s ability to provide seamless service experience to users that are moving. In addition to mobile users, the identified 5G use cases show that 5G networks will have to support an increasingly large segment of static and nomadic users/devices. 5G solutions therefore should not assume mobility support for all devices and services but rather provide mobility on demand only to those devices and services that need it.

5G Data Speed(User Experience KPI’s(Key Performance Indicators)/End user experienced data rate)

Use case Category	User Experienced Data Rate	E2E Latency	Mobility
Broadband access in dense areas	DL: 300 Mbps  UL: 50 Mbps	10 ms	On demand,  0-100 km/h
Indoor ultra-high broadband access	DL: 1 Gbps, UL: 500 Mbps	10 ms	Pedestrian
Broadband access in a crowd	DL: 25 Mbps UL: 50 Mbps	10 ms	Pedestrian
50+ Mbps everywhere	DL: 50 Mbps  UL: 25 Mbps	10 ms	0-120 km/h
Ultra-low cost broadband access for low ARPU areas	DL: 10 Mbps UL: 10 Mbps	50 ms	on demand: 050 km/h
Mobile broadband in vehicles (cars, trains)	DL: 50 Mbps UL: 25 Mbps	10 ms	On demand, up to 500 km/h
Airplanes connectivity	DL: 15 Mbps per user  UL: 7.5 Mbps per user	10 ms	Up to 1000 km/h
Massive lowcost/long-range/lowpower MTC	Low (typically 1-100 kbps)	Seconds to hours	on demand: 0500 km/h
Broadband MTC	See the requirements for the Broadband access in dense areas and 50+Mbps everywhere categories
Ultra-low latency	DL: 50 Mbps UL: 25 Mbps	<1 ms	Pedestrian
Resilience and traffic surge	DL: 0.1-1 Mbps UL: 0.1-1 Mbps	Regular communication: not critical	0-120 km/h
Ultra-high reliability & Ultra-low latency	DL: From 50 kbps to 10 Mbps;  UL: From a few bps to 10 Mbps	1 ms	on demand: 0500 km/h
Ultra-high availability & reliability	DL: 10 Mbps UL: 10 Mbps	10 ms	On demand, 0500 km/h
Broadcast like services	DL: Up to 200 Mbps  UL: Modest (e.g. 500 kbps)	<100 ms	on demand: 0500 km/h

E2E:end-to-end,DL:Download,UL:Upload

5G System Requirements

System performance requirements define the system capabilities needed to satisfy the variety and variability of users and use cases.

Connection Density 

Up to several hundred thousand simultaneous active connections per square kilometre shall be supported for massive sensor deployments. Here, active means the devices are exchanging data with the network. Note this KPI assumes a single operator in the considered area.

Traffic Density 

The 5G network should be able to serve massive number of HTC and MTC devices. In the extreme cases: 

• Data rates of several tens of Mb/s should be supported for tens of thousands of users in crowded areas, such as stadiums or open-air festivals. 
• 1Gb/s to be offered simultaneously to tens of workers in the same office floor. 

Spectrum Efficiency 

Spectrum efficiency should be significantly enhanced compared to 4G in order for the operators to sustain such huge traffic demands under spectrum constraints, while keeping the number of sites reasonable

Coverage 

The 5G technology should allow the data rates requirements to be achieved in rural areas with only the current grid of macro sites.

Resource and Signalling Efficiency

Signalling efficiency should be enhanced, so that the related radio resource and energy consumption are minimised and justified by the application needs.For certain IoT/MTC applications, additional measures should be considered to avoid a surge by volume in case a large number of devices attempt to access the network simultaneously.

5G System Requirements 

Use case category	Connection Density	Traffic Density
Broadband access in dense areas	200-2500 /km2	DL:  750 Gbps / km2  UL:  125 Gbps / km2
Indoor ultra-high broadband access	75,000 / km2  (75/1000 m2 office)	DL:  15 Tbps/ km2  (15 Gbps / 1000 m2) UL:   2 Tbps / km2  (2 Gbps / 1000 m2)
Broadband access in a crowd	150,000 / km2  (30.000 / stadium)	DL:  3.75 Tbps / km2  (DL: 0.75 Tbps / stadium) UL:  7.5 Tbps / km2  (1.5 Tbps / stadium)
50+ Mbps everywhere	400 / km2 in suburban 100 / km2 in rural	DL:  20 Gbps / km2 in suburban UL: 10 Gbps / km2 in suburban DL: 5 Gbps / km2 in rural UL:  2.5 Gbps / km2 in rural
Ultra-low cost broadband access for low ARPU areas	16 / km2	16 Mbps / km2
Mobile broadband in vehicles (cars, trains)	2000 / km2  (500 active users per train x 4 trains,  or 1 active user per car x 2000 cars)	DL: 100 Gbps / km2  (25 Gbps per train,  50 Mbps per car) UL:   50 Gbps / km2  (12.5 Gbps per train, 25 Mbps per car)
Airplanes connectivity	80 per plane  60 airplanes per 18,000 km2	DL: 1.2 Gbps / plane  UL: 600 Mbps / plane
Massive low-cost/long-range/low-power MTC	Up to 200,000 / km2	Non critical
Broadband MTC	See the requirements for the Broadband access in dense areas and 50+Mbps everywhere categories
Ultra-low latency	Not critical	Potentially high
Resilience and traffic surge	10,000 / km2	Potentially high
Ultra-high reliability & Ultra-low latency*  (*) the reliability requirement for this category is described in Section 4.4.5	Not critical	Potentially high
Ultra-high availability & reliability*  (*) the reliability requirement for this category is described in Section 4.4.5	Not critical	Potentially high
Broadcast like services	Not relevant	Not relevant

5G Device requirements

Smart devices in the 5G era will grow in capability and complexity as both the hardware and software, and particularly the operating system will continue to evolve. They may also in some cases become active relays to other devices, or support network controlled device-to-device communication.

Operator Control Capabilities on Devices 5G terminals should have a high degree of programmability and configurability by the network, for example in terms of terminal capabilities, access technology used, transport protocol used and certain lower layer functions (e.g. error control schemes).

The 5G devices should provide the capability to operators to check the hardware and software platform configuration over the air, the capability to update the smart device’s operating system over the air, and the ability to diagnose the malfunction of devices or malware in smart device plus the ability to fix the problems or update device software that affect end user experience or overall network performance. 

Multi-Band-Multi-Mode Support in Devices 

To enable true global roaming capability, smart devices should be able to support multiple bands as well as multiple modes (TDD/FDD/mixed). Note that IoT/MTC devices which are stationary may not require multiple bands/modes. 

Furthermore, to achieve the high data rates, devices should be able to use multiple bands simultaneously, without impacting the single band performance or network performance. 5G terminals shall support aggregation of data flows from different technologies and carriers. 

Device Power Efficiency 

Battery life shall be significantly increased: at least 3 days for a smartphone, and up to 15 years for a low-cost MTC device

Resource and Signalling Efficiency 

At the device side, the resource and signalling efficiency requirement is even more crucial as frequent signalling has a significant impact on the battery life. 

Connectivity Transparency 

Connectivity transparency is a key requirement for delivering consistent experience in a highly heterogeneous environment. 

5G may involve a combination of radio access technologies (RATs). In addition, given that 3GPP LTE / LTE-Advanced is likely to further evolve within the 5G era, both new RATs and the LTE RAT may be accessible to 5G user terminals. 

Sources:https://www.ngmn.org

How transparent displays work

Transparent display

A transparent smartphone concept

A Transparent display is an electronic display that allows the user to see what is shown on the glass screen while still being able to see through it.Transparent Electroluminescent display has been around for a decade or two.It has been an inevitable part oif sci-fi movies since 90's.Always Hollywood is a step ahead of science.But,only after 2010 companies have started thinking about it seriously.By the end of 2011 few companies had finished their transparent display prototypes.

Types of Transparent/see through displays

There are two major transparent display technologies, LCD and LED.Transparent LCD display is of absorptive nature and transparent LED display is emissive in nature.Let us have a look at the working principle behind both type of see-through dispalys.

How transparent displays work?

Transparent LCD display

Transparet LCD display from EVOLUCE(a German company)

Hope you are familiar with the working of LCD display.If don't please go through and come back.

• Working of LCD.

Different Layers of an LCD unit

Refer the diagram given above.You can see different layers of LCD display unit.If you remove the mirror(A) ,then remaining layers can be made transparent.Standard LCD screens,have backlit components built into them to help illuminate the pixels on the screen. This backlighting help make the screen visible to viewers, but thicken the screens so that they’re no longer see-through.onverting these standard LCD screens into transparent LCD screens requires an alternative light source that doesn’t block the display. Transparent LCD panel utilizes ambient light such as sun light, which consequently reduces the dependency on electricity for generating power.Usually for transparent LCD system LED illuminated boxes with integrated electronics and connections are used.

A transparent LCD display can be integrated into store windows, display cases, billboards, and more to make static words and images more kinetic. Products can be placed behind a clear transparent screen that shows advertising and provide the opportunity to showcase real products while providing interactive information with an transparent LCD display.

Transparent LED display.

Samsung transparent OLED panel

Transparent OLED displays are self-emitting  and utilize cutting edge Organic Light Emitting Diode [OLED] technology to eliminate the need for a backlight or enclosure.

A transparent OLED pixel

Each pixel in a transparent OLED is made up of 4 sub-pixels. Color is created by the combination of red, green and blue sub- pixels and the remaining area of the pixel is clear. That clear section creates the transparency.This is why there is a direct relationship between resolution and transparency. Ff the display contains more active pixels that creates less space for clear pixels,it results in less see-through.So,in OLED transparent panel design,there is a need for transmission and resolution optimization.Unlike transparent LCD displays,black or dark content on the display is clear and white or bright content is opaque.Just like any glass surface ,ambient light effects that appearance of transparency.The more you light the item behind,more transparent the screen.Transparent cathode and electronics components also add to the transparency of panel.Transparent electronics are made using a special class of material called Transparent Conductive Oxides(TCO).In2O3,SnO2,CdO,ZnO are some of the commonly used TCOs.

• What is OLED and How it works?

Transparency in eletronics can also be achieved by graphene.Graphene is single atom thick carbon sheet which is highly transparent and super flexible.[Read more about graphene]Researches in this field is going around the world.Scientist claim that graphene will be the key to future electronics.

sources:http://www.evoluce.com/,www.planar.com

What is Graphene?What can Graphene do in electronics?

Graphene is going to change the future of electronic industry in a decade.

Structure of Graphene

Content Highlight

• What is Graphene?
• Who and How Graphene  was discovered?
• What makes Graphene a Super Material?
• Structure of Graphene
• Applications of Graphene

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Graphene is an allotrope of carbon. Scientists have theorized about graphene for years.. Although scientists knew one atom thick, two-dimensional crystal graphene existed, no-one had worked out how to extract it from graphite.That was until it was isolated in 2004 by two researchers at The University of Manchester, Prof Andre Geim and Prof Kostya Novoselov. . This work resulted in the two winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene."Graphene is nothing but one atom thick carbon sheet with hexagonal lattice.

Who discovered Graphene? ,How graphene was discovered?

First crystals of graphene were discovered in 2004 using a simple and effective experiment,mainly ordinary scotch tape.During Friday evening experiments in Manchester scientists noticed small parts of graphene on the tape used to clean graphite stone.The to scientist Prof Andre Geim and Prof Kostya Novoselov were awarded with the Nobel prize for physics ,for simple but ground breaking experiment.This area of science grew extremely quickly and today hundreds of laboratories all over the world deal with different aspects of graphene research.

Since is is obtained from graphite you may ask 'Then Is graphite and graphene the same?'Graphene is simply one atomic layer of graphite.If so 'Can you see graphene?' ,answer is yes.It is basically transparent, absorbing just 2.3 percent of light that falls on it, but if you place it over blank sheet, you can see that it is there." That means you can see a single layer of atoms with your naked eye.

What makes the graphene a super material?

What makes graphene a super material is it's combination of unique properties.This is the first two dimensional material and thinnest material ever found.This gives graphene it's unique properties.

• How strong is graphene?This is the strongest material and harder than diamond and about 300 times stronger than steel.
• It conducts much better than copper. 
• Graphene is a transparent material.
• It is bendable and can take any form.
• This unique super material gave birth to a new class of crystals that are also just one atom thin.And what more fantastic is that these can be shuffled with each other to engineer new on demand to meet special needs of different industries.

Applications of graphene in Electronics

Graphene is a disruptive technology.It could open up new markets and even replace existing technologies or materials.Since its isolation in 2004 it captured attention of scientists and researchers around the world.Following properties make Graphene suitable for various applications in the field of Energy, Membranes,Composites and Coatings, Biomedical, Sensors,Electronics.

Graphene in batteries

Graphene could dramatically increase the lifespan of a traditional lithium ion battery, meaning devices can be charged more quickly - and hold more power for longer. Imagine fully charging a smartphone in seconds, or an electric car in minutes. That's the power of graphene. Batteries could be so flexible and light that they can be stitched into clothing. Or into the body. For soldiers, who carry up to 16lbs of battery at one time, the impact of this could be huge. Carrying less weight, and using batteries that can be recharged by body heat or the sun would allow them to stay out in the field for longer.

Graphene supercapacitors

Graphene supercapacitors could provide massive amounts of power while using much less energy than conventional devices. Because they are light, they could also reduce the weight of cars or planes.

Graphene sensors

NO2 molecule on a graphene sheet

Graphene is an ideal material for sensors. Every atom in graphene is exposed to its environment allowing it to sense changes in its surroundings. For chemical sensors the goal is to be able to detect just one molecule of a potentially dangerous substance. Graphene now allows for the creation of micrometre-size sensors capable of detecting individual events on a molecular level.

Reducing food waste:Graphene oxide can be used to create 'smart' food packaging products. This could dramatically cut down on unnecessary food wastage and simultaneously help prevent illnesses. Packaging which has been coated with graphene has the ability to detect atmospheric changes caused by decaying food.

Crop protection:Graphene sensors could boost the effectiveness of monitoring vital crops in the agriculture industry. Farmers would be able to monitor the existence of any harmful gasses which could impact upon crop fields and take relevant action. As graphene sensors are so sensitive it is feasible to be able to determine the ideal areas for growing certain crops depending on atmospheric conditions.

Defence:The extreme sensitivity of graphene-based sensors could also be tuned to chemical warfare agents and explosives. This could allow for early warning detection systems for soldiers in the field potentially saving lives.

Graphene electronics

Graphene has the potential to create the next-generation of electronics currently limited to sci-fi. Faster transistors; semiconductors; bendable phones and other electronics.

Graphene can be used as a coating to improve current touch screens for phones and tablets. It can also be used to make the circuitry for our computers making them incredibly fast. These are just two examples of how graphene can enhance today's devices. Graphene can also spark the next-generation of electronics.

Wearable technology:Graphene could see a smart phone which you could wear on your wrist or a tablet you could roll up like a newspaper. Flexible, wearable electronics take advantage of graphene's mechanical properties as well as its conductivity. Indium-tin oxide is currently used for touch screens as it conducts well but it is brittle.

Graphene Transistors:Researchers at The University of Manchester have already created the world's smallest transistor using graphene. The smaller the size of the transistor, the better they perform within circuits. The fundamental challenge facing the electronics industry in the next 20 years is the further miniaturisation of technology.

Graphene Semiconductors:Graphene's unique properties of thinness and conductivity have led to global research into its applications as a semiconductor. At just one atom thick and with the ability to conduct electricity at room temperature graphene semiconductors could replace existing technology for computer chips. Research has already shown that graphene chips are much faster than existing ones made from silicon.

Other Applications of Graphene

• Graphene sheets as body armour: Is graphene bullet proof? Layers of carbon one-atom thick can absorb blows that would punch through steel. Recent tests suggest that pure graphene performs twice as well as the fabric currently used in bulletproof vests, making it an ideal armour for soldiers and police.
• Tissue engineering: Graphene can be used in  tissue engineering. It can be used as a reinforcing agent to improve the mechanical properties of biodegradable polymeric nanocomposites for engineering bone tissue applications.
• Graphene in PCR(Polymerized Chain Reaction):PCR is the process of multiplying of DNA segments.Graphene is reported to have enhanced PCR by increasing the yield.

Real potentials of Graphene is yet to be explored.Let us hope like any other invention , this one also solve some of our daily life problems.

Source http://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/