Ethernet to RF: Single Chip ORAN 4TX/4RX 5G Radio Unit Base Station Transceiver

This paper presents the first RF-to-Ethernet Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) split 7.2A radio unit (RU) base station system-on-a-chip (SOC). In 16nm FinFET CMOS, the 4-TX, 4-RX transceiver provides 660 MHz large-signal BW and 800 MHz DPD synthesis BW, across LO frequencies from 400 MHz to 7.1 GHz. It supports full-band multicarrier (MC) operation in all TDD/FDD 3GPP bands for NR FR1, LTE, and NB-IoT radios. The SoC includes 2×10Gb/s or 2×25Gb/s Ethernet interface, four receivers, four transmitters, and a digital pre-distortion (DPD) feedback receiver (FBRX). Four PLLs provide digital/data converter clocks, Ethernet clocks and two RF LO signals. Digital interpolation, decimation, AGC, TX Power control, and calibrations are managed by an ARM M4 dual core processor and internal controllers. An ARM A55 quad core processor running Linux provides radio unit (RU) control. Total SOC power dissipation for dual band FDD 4TX/4RX/FBRX 800 MHz synthesis BW is 24.1W.