Small Cell Forum (SCF) today published a comprehensive overview of the components and interfaces that comprise a 5G NR FR1 small cell distributed radio unit. The SCF251 5G NR FR1 Reference Design makes the case for a common, modular architecture for 5G small cell distributed radio units.

This work, co-lead by Picocom, lays the foundations for the development of reference designs focused on delivering greater flexibility and scalability, including the ability to swap out regionally specific RF front end (RFFE) modules.

Small cells come in a growing variety of form factors, with different architectures, power levels and designed to address a diversity of use cases. Currently, the interfaces between different vendors’ small cells, or between different functional splits, are not uniform. This can increase cost, complexity and integration time and reduces scale.

The SCF251 paper provides the foundational framework for understanding the components and interfaces that make up a 5G NR FR1 small cell distributed radio unit. Reference designs can then be built within this framework to address different markets and scenarios with different RFFE requirements. That will enable designers to create products that can be easily configured and reconfigured for different applications. The paper also provides an overview of available solutions, as vendors and deployers increasingly look to have a second or third source of each component.

Video about 5G NR FR1 Reference Design

In the video below, the lead contributors of the paper explain the background and outcomes of the work in more detail. Hear from Victor Torres, VP Marketing, arQana Technologies, Martin Lysejko, Director of System Design, Picocom, Ahmed Abdelrahman, Systems Design Engineer, Analog Devices and Michael Milnes, FTTX Product Specialist, Senko Advanced Components.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INgcRjebt98

Download the SCF251 paper here.

Read the full SCF new release here.

Original Source SCF.