millimeter wave cellular systems

Millimeter wave (mmWave) is a technology that can provide high bandwidth communication links in cellular systems. As mmWave uses larger bandwidths, the corresponding sampling rate of the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) scales up. Unfortunately, high speed, high resolution (e.g., 6-12 bits) ADCs are costly and power-hungry for portable devices. A possible solution is to use special ADC structures like a time interleaved ADC (TI-ADC) architecture where a number of low-speed, high-precision ADCs operate in parallel.

Millimeter Wave (mmWave) cellular will enable gigabit-per-second data rates thanks to the large bandwidth potentially available at this frequency band. Achieving these gains in practice, however, requires dealing with the severe propagation characteristics of high-frequency signals. To combat the enhanced path-loss in outdoor mmWave links and to provide sufficient received signal power, directional beamforming with large antenna arrays needs to be deployed at both the base station and mobile users.