On June 15th, Liu Yunjie, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stated that the Nanjing Network Communication and Security Purple Mountain Laboratory has developed a CMOS millimeter wave fully integrated 4-channel phased array chip and completed the chip packaging and testing. The cost per channel has been reduced by 1,000 yuan. To 20 yuan. The package integrates a millimeter wave large-scale active antenna array with 1024-channel antenna units. The chip and antenna array are expected to be used in 5G systems in 2022.

For China’s semiconductor industry, which is currently subject to multilateral checks and balances in the United States, any breakthrough in a subdivision will become a profound imprint on the “history of blood and tears” of domestic substitution. Millimeter wave chips are the current 5G core “core” technology chain Of course, this important part is no exception. Nowadays, with the breakthroughs in the autonomy of domestic millimeter-wave phased array chips and the substantial cost cuts, China has further increased its own bargaining chips for "anti-sanctions" while increasing its voice in the 5G core "core" industry chain.

After all, millimeter wave has now become the focus of global operators. At present, in order to give full play to the potential of 5G, operators are generally adopting a 5G deployment strategy of "below 6GHz + millimeter wave", making full use of low, medium and high frequency bands to deploy 5G. Among them, the mid-frequency band mainly achieves the balance of network coverage and capacity, while the millimeter wave can provide multi-gigabit rate and ultra-large capacity, and can cooperate with networks below 6GHz, making full use of potential massive spectrum resources to provide a large capacity layer and support Very high network speed.

At the same time, on March 24 this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also officially issued the "Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's Notice on Promoting the Accelerated Development of 5G", mentioning the timely release of some 5G millimeter wave frequency band usage plans and the development of the 5G industry (including the industrial Internet) Research on dedicated frequency planning and timely implementation of technical test frequency licenses have further accelerated the domestic development in the millimeter wave field.

The advent of low-cost millimeter-wave phased array chips is invaluable under the background of market demand and policy-driven. After all, the millimeter-wave phased array chip as the core device has been expensive, which has seriously affected its commercial promotion. It is reported that so far, millimeter-wave phased array technology has only been partially applied in areas that are not sensitive to prices, such as military industry. Take a typical phased array antenna with 256 channels as an example. Its price is as high as one million yuan (RMB), which greatly restricts its development in large-scale application scenarios. In contrast, the cost of some core materials of this ultra-low-cost chip is only 1/30 to 1/50 that of foreign countries, clearing the cost barriers on the road to commercialization.

The advent of such a low-cost solution has cast a "reassurance" for the domestic 5G core "core" industry chain. However, it still takes time for laboratory technology to truly go into commercial use or even large-scale shipments. Although the official said that the chip technology can be used in large-scale 5G systems by 2022, it is well known that nowadays the global technology dispute is intensifying. , 

The semiconductor market is even more turbulent, and there are many powerful players. When the time comes to 2022, whether this highly anticipated "domestic core" can adapt to the unpredictable semiconductor market in terms of cost performance, and even move towards the mainstream of the market, remains to be verified by time.

However, in general, the editor believes that the success of the independent 5G millimeter-wave phased array chip is only the beginning. 

Under the strong stimulation of the current situation, the successful breakthrough of such a blockbuster chip technology is exciting. , Is expected to drive more domestic independent "cores" out of the siege. With the help of the huge domestic market resources and strong self-digestibility, coupled with the correct guidance of follow-up national policies, domestic substitution of key links in the 5G core "core" will no longer be out of reach.