The Next Big Leap In 5G: How Innovation Is Making Networks Faster And Cleaner

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The world of telecommunications is experiencing a seismic shift. As nations scramble to secure their digital infrastructure, a fascinating transformation is taking place in how we build and maintain our cellular networks. At the heart of this revolution is an innovative collaboration between three companies that are changing the game in 5G technology.

Breaking Down Traditional Barriers

The telecommunications landscape has seen significant changes due?to movements in many countries toward "made in country" initiatives. These policies emphasize local control and development of critical technologies, ensuring that nations can maintain sovereignty over their telecommunications infrastructure.

The removal of certain vendors from Western markets created an unexpected opportunity for innovation. As Darron Enright, director of business at Blue Waves Mobility Innovation, explains, "With a mandate by federal governments in the western markets to have Huawei removed in recent years, the number of viable traditional RAN providers was reduced to the big three vendors." This vacuum has sparked a new wave of innovation in Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) technology.

Altera supports this trend through its licensing model, which allows customers to retain full control over design and development processes within their own borders, including production rights. This approach empowers countries to build and manage their networks independently, fostering innovation and reducing reliance on external vendors.

The Power Of Flexibility In Modern Networks

In today's fast-paced telecommunications world, adaptability isn't just an advantage – it's a necessity. "Customers’ needs vary widely across different markets due to differing spectrum requirements and use cases," notes Enright. "Traditionally, when operators had unique requirements for spectrum bands that they hold, the wait time could be years."

This is where the magic of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) comes into play. Think of FPGAs as blank-slate computer chips that can be programmed and reprogrammed for different tasks – like having a digital Swiss Army knife for telecommunications infrastructure. Unlike generic radios, which often fail to meet the highly specific requirements of operators, FPGAs offer the flexibility to adapt to unique use cases.

Many radio designs today are mapped to specific operator applications from the start, requiring precise customization. FPGAs deliver high bandwidth and low latency performance comparable to Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), but with significantly lower upfront costs. Moreover, paired with the radio enablement package, customers gain the ability to heavily modify designs to meet their needs without the usual resource-intensive barriers. This package dramatically reduces time-to-market and research and development costs, addressing the challenges of creating unique designs, which traditionally demand significant time, expertise, and financial investment.

Innovation Through Collaboration

The partnership between these three companies is proving particularly powerful. Mike Fitton, GM and VP of vertical markets at Altera, emphasizes the importance of their approach: "Radio designs are pretty complex... it can take anything from 18 months to over two years to move from concept into production." By combining their expertise, Altera and Analog Devices (ADI) are significantly reducing these timeframes.

Altera’s radio team brings years of experience, not only creating and validating radio designs on hardware but also supporting customers in modifying and developing unique designs tailored to their needs. Meanwhile, ADI’s deep knowledge in optimizing Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) for power amplifier (PA) linearization addresses one of the most energy-intensive aspects of radio networks. As Bill McKenney points out, optimizing PA performance leads to significant power savings, reducing operating costs and making the product more appealing to operators.

The Green Revolution In Telecommunications

One of the most intriguing aspects of this collaboration is its environmental impact. Bill McKenney from Analog Devices reveals a startling statistic: "The GSMA is reporting that about 1.7% of the world's energy is consumed in wireless radio access networks." Their joint efforts are tackling this challenge head-on with new technologies that significantly reduce power consumption.

Future-Proofing Our Networks

What makes this collaboration particularly exciting is its potential for future growth. As we look toward 6G and beyond, the flexibility of their approach becomes even more valuable. "FPGAs are inherently flexible," explains Mike Fitton. "As we have support for new requirements, support for new waveforms, support for new customer requirements, they can be rapidly developed on FPGAs. They can even be downloaded over the air in situ in the network."

This flexibility enables operators to create a platform that evolves with new standards without the need for costly re-validation, redesigns, or tape-outs. Given the mission-critical nature of radios—where downtime is costly and designs must endure extreme conditions with passive cooling—this adaptability is a game-changer. FPGAs allow for seamless upgrades as protocols are refined, algorithms like LDPC (error correction) are optimized, and power savings become achievable through updated designs. Additionally, operators can build generic physical designs on FPGAs that can be redefined for a broad variety of use cases, ensuring their networks remain cutting-edge and cost-effective.

The Road Ahead

The impact of this collaboration extends far beyond just technical improvements. Blue Waves Mobility Innovation reports that these new solutions are reducing engineering time and lowering development costs by 10–12 percent. "Pre-integrated solutions minimize errors, cut down on rework, and save time and resources," explains Enright.

A significant driver of these efficiencies is the advent of Open Radio Access Network (ORAN), which standardizes protocols and functional designs across the industry. This allows radios designed by one vendor to work seamlessly with baseband or distributed units from another, creating a more open and interoperable ecosystem. Altera has leveraged this standardization to develop versatile designs for Macrocell and mMIMO radios that align with ORAN specifications. Customers can adopt these generic designs and modify them to meet specific requirements, remaining both ORAN-compliant and adaptable to their end-users' needs.

As we stand on the brink of a new era in telecommunications, this partnership between Altera, Analog Devices, and Blue Waves Mobility Innovation demonstrates how collaboration and innovation can solve complex technical challenges while creating more sustainable and efficient solutions for our connected world.

Click here for more information on Altera and it’s FPGA technology.

About Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, influencer and thought leader in the fields of business and technology, with a passion for using technology for the good of humanity. He is a best-selling author of over 20 books, writes a regular column for Forbes and advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organisations.

He has a combined following of 4 million people across his social media channels and newsletters and was ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world. Bernard’s latest book is ‘Generative AI in Practice’.