Anritsu Corp. is pleased to announce that its MT8000A Radio Communication Test Station has been adopted to verify the performance of key 5G features, such as Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) in the FR1 FDD mode, in the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System.

This continued collaboration between Anritsu and Qualcomm Technologies Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc., around testing of advanced 5G technologies will help facilitate early rollout and adoption of 5G devices and services.

5G non-standalone (NSA) services have already been introduced in several parts of the world in 2019 and 5G standalone (SA) services are expected to be deployed globally starting in 2020, which in turn is accelerating the penetration of 5G technology. Our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies is focused on testing of key features required by these services in both SA and NSA modes.

DSS is a key technology for flexibly allocating the resources of a single frequency band to LTE and 5G according to demand. Using DSS at introduction of 5G services, with a mixture of 5G and LTE terminal users, helps provide LTE users with continued good communications while offering 5G users advanced services over the same frequency band – allowing for a smooth transition from 4G to 5G, as well as efficient use of frequency resources. DSS also allows the operator to rapidly deploy 5G services in bands currently used by LTE without having to wait for frequency re-farming.

In addition to supporting DSS, the MT8000A can also test several other advanced 5G features included in the Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System, such as Massive MIMO and Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP), the 5G core network slicing technology.

Anritsu Corp. will continue to actively develop and contribute to the realization of leading-edge communication technology collaborating with Qualcomm Technologies.

Jon Detra, VP of engineering at Qualcomm Technologies Inc., commented, “We were able to accelerate the verification of cutting-edge 5G technology in our solutions with the adoption of Anritsu’s stable and robust test platform. We aim to continue to cooperate with Anritsu to support the mobile ecosystem in developing and commercializing high-quality 5G devices.”

As a result of this collaboration, Tsutomu Tokuke, VP, Anritsu Corp., commented, “We are pleased that providing our leading test solution to one of the mobile industry leaders, Qualcomm Technologies, will help to move forward its 5G product development even further, and Anritsu will espouse its goal of advancing next-generation wireless technologies and contribute to the development and deployment of the 5G ecosystem.”

Radio Communication Test Station MT8000A

The MT8000A is an all-in-one test platform for RF, Protocol, and Beam tests, as well as for beam-forming evaluations. In addition to supporting functions for simulating base station NSA and SA modes required for development of 5G chipsets and terminals, it also supports the latest technologies, such as 4x4 MIMO, for increasing data transmission speeds in the Sub-6 GHz band, as well as 8CC for implementing wideband mmWave.

Moreover, it covers the key frequency bands used by the first 5G services, such as the Sub-6 GHz band (FR1) frequencies of 600 MHz, 2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz, 4.5 GHz, etc., and the mmWave band (FR2) frequencies of 28 GHz, 39 GHz, etc.

With an easy-to-use GUI and software for setting various test parameters, it helps easy and flexible configuration of an efficient and cost-effective test environment.