LG announced (opens in a new tab) successful tests of 6G wireless data transmission technology, they say, could see wireless internet speeds over 1 Tops. The demonstration, which took place at the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany, used a frequency range of 155-175 GHz, well above the 24.25-52.6 GHz that makes up the upper end of the 5G spectrum.
The data transmission – the press release does not specify the speed actually reached – took place over a distance of 320 meters, tripling the 100m record set in August last year with similar technology. This distance exceeds the reference design for urban cellular coverage, which places base stations 250 m apart. For comparison, 5G wavelengths have a range of around 1,000m and 4G can handle around 10 miles.
As we learned with Wi-Fi (currently tested at 5 Gbps (opens in a new tab)), the higher your transmit frequency, the shorter the range, so signal amplification that doesn’t dissolve in electronic noise is essential. The test used a multi-channel power amplifier with an output of over 20 dBm, beating the previous test by 5 dBm, and a low-noise amplifier on the receive side. These technologies have been incorporated into LG’s latest 6G modules, which have been designed to be easy to produce for future manufacturing plants.
With 5G still not fully available outside major cities, it may seem premature to test its replacement, and talks of 6G standardization aren’t expected to begin until 2025, with commercial release around 2029. Lots of research in this area come from China. . Scientists from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Osaka University in Japan announced that they had created a chip capable of producing terahertz waves in 2020, while earlier this year Purple Mountain Laboratories of China claimed a data rate of 206.25 gigabits per second in a laboratory environment within the terahertz frequency band.
“With the success of our latest demonstration, we are one step closer to achieving 6G speeds of 1 terabit per second in indoor and outdoor urban areas,” said Dr. Kim Byoung-hoon, CTO and Executive Vice President of LG Electronics. . “LG will continue to cooperate with research institutes and industry innovators to further strengthen its leadership in 6G technology. We expect 6G to be a major driver of future business and new user experiences, and it there’s no place we’d rather be than at the forefront of its development.”
