Student number:19021210945.

At present, 5G technology is developing rapidly, and some base stations have been put into use. However, the establishment of the 5G ecosystem in various industries still faces various problems. Understanding the 5G industrial chain can help us understand 5G technology more deeply.

5G industrial chain embedded in bovine nose

What is the 5G industrial chain?

What is the industrial chain? Industrial chain is both a product chain and a value chain. From raw materials to equipment to products. From small products to large products, and finally to system products, solutions and supporting services, to provide users. The enterprises, institutions and individuals involved in this series of chains are all part of the industrial chain.

The 5G industrial chain, finally delivered, is the 5G network service enjoyed by the majority of users.

From a hardware point of view, users want to use 5G network services, and there are no two things-5G networks and 5G terminals. To put it bluntly, it means being organic and having a net.

The 5G network is essentially a mobile communication network. As far as we know, only mobile communication operators are qualified to build and operate mobile communication networks. In China, we have four operators, namely China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and China Radio and Television. The communication networks built and operated by operators nationwide are public communication networks, also known as "public networks".

The "franchise" mode adopted by the public network gives operators an absolute central position in the communication industry. Almost all communications industry investments (5G investments) come from operators. Most of these investments come from our monthly phone bills, and some of them come from state investment or capital markets. Operators provide users with network services, but network equipment is not made by operators themselves, and will be purchased by bidding from manufacturers. In addition to equipment hardware and software, they also buy services. These services include design services, installation services and maintenance services.

All enterprises that can provide mobile communication-related products or services want to be the second party of operators. These second parties include major equipment manufacturers, sub-industry equipment manufacturers, engineering contractors, human service providers and so on. Party B also has its own Party B, and Party B's Party B also has Party B, so one link is buckled to form a chain.

The 5G industrial chain, or communication industrial chain, is not a single chain, but a multi-chain. Communication network is a complex whole, which consists of many parts. Each part has its own industrial chain.

From a macro point of view, the industrial chain of 5G network can be divided into three regions, which correspond to the communication network architecture one by one, namely, the access network industrial chain, the bearer network industrial chain and the core network industrial chain.

Among these three industrial chains, access network and bearer network are the most worthy of attention. Because for a public network like 5G, it is necessary to build a very large number and scale of base stations and optical fiber communication networks. The base station belongs to the access network. Although optical fiber communication is used in access network, bearer network and core network, it is mainly used in bearer network. The operator network industry chain is equivalent to the optical communication industry chain.

Let's take a look at the industrial chain of the 5G base station (access network). 4G base stations are mainly BBU, RRU and passive antennas. The 5G base station has become CU (centralized unit), DU (distributed unit) and AAU (active antenna).

In the 5G era, large-scale MIMO (large-scale antenna array) technology began to be applied, and the antenna changed from passive to active, and the technical complexity was much higher. The relationship between the antenna and the main equipment of the base station is closer, and it is no longer simply radiating signals in the specified direction. The active antenna (AAU) of the 5G base station consists of a large number of vibrators, a PCB and an external radome. Radio frequency equipment is an important part of the base station, including filters. Take the filter you often hear about as an example. In the 3G/4G era, the base station filter mainly adopts metal coaxial cavity. In the 5G era, ceramic dielectric filters with high Q value, low loss and low temperature drift are expected to become the mainstream. The main equipment manufacturers of base stations are Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia and Datang. They began to nibble at the antenna market that they didn't care about before.

Inside the main equipment CU and DU of the 5G base station, there are a large number of circuit boards, electronic components and many chips. Their function is to do some protocol processing and operations. Chip is a semiconductor used for calculation, and there will be chips where there is calculation. The base station main equipment has chips, and so do the bearer network and core network equipment. Needless to say, the 5G chip mentioned in the network article refers to the SoC chip in the 5G mobile phone in most cases. It is only a small member of the huge chip family in the communication industry. The chip in 5G base station equipment is completely different from mobile phone chip or computer CPU chip, and has its own unique function, design and algorithm. These chips (particularly important chips) are basically independently developed by ZTE and Huawei (ZTE Microelectronics and Huawei Hisilicon). In addition to the main equipment, the base station has a large number of supporting equipment, such as computer room power supply, batteries, air conditioning, security monitoring and even comprehensive station buildings, iron towers, etc., all of which have their own subdivided industrial chains. Besides outdoor Hong Jizhan, there are also miniature base stations mainly used indoors.

Let's look at the bearing net.

The operator network industry chain is almost equal to the optical communication industry chain. In today's era, optical fiber is undoubtedly the best (only) choice for wired data transmission. Optical communication generally includes optical cable, optical module and optical communication main equipment.

Fiber optic cables are well known. Optical module is complex, mainly composed of optical chips, optical components, PCB and so on. The main value is concentrated on optical chips. Basically, low-end optical chips have been localized, but the profit rate is not high. At present, the technology of high-end optical chips (100G and above) is mostly in the hands of foreign manufacturers, and domestic manufacturers are stepping up their efforts to catch up. Optical modules can focus on Zhongji Xu Chuang, Guangxun Technology, Xinyisheng, Hisense Broadband, Yang Yifei, Mingpu Optics and Magnetics, etc. These companies have also made their own 400G optical modules. The optical module is generally installed on the main equipment. The main optical communication equipment is OTN, PTN and other equipment. To put it bluntly, it is an optical transmission device with an optical port. Companies that have done well in China include Huawei, ZTE, Fiberhome, H3C, etc.

Look at the core network again.

In the three fields of access network, bearer network and core network, the number of core networks is the least, so even if the unit price is high, it accounts for the smallest proportion in the investment of the whole network. In many overseas projects, the core network is given away.

It should be noted that the 5G core network adopts virtualization technology, and the general server has been completely adopted in hardware, so its industrial chain in hardware is basically the same as the general x86 server in data center. In terms of software, many enterprises are now engaged in core network software (open source core network), but considering the reliability requirements of the telecommunications industry, operators should still mainly use the core network solutions of Huawei, ZTE and other companies, and dare not directly use small manufacturers. The core network of small manufacturers is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized overseas operators and private network markets.

After the network, let's talk about the terminal.

For the consumer Internet, terminals basically refer to wearable devices such as mobile phones and telephone watches. For 5G mobile phones, it is very important to have 5G SoC chips and 5G baseband chips. In fact, in addition to the consumer Internet, the more important application field of 5G is the industrial Internet. In other words, the main service target of 5G network is not mobile phone users, but industry users. As an important carrier of the Internet of Everything, 5G will provide services for industries including industry, agriculture, logistics and transportation. In different application scenarios, there are different 5G terminals.