5G NR mobile phone hardware components | 5G Smart phone Block Diagram

This article covers 5G NR mobile phone hardware components. It mentions 5G Smart phone block diagram with internal components of 5G mobile phone.

Introduction:
5G NR (New Radio) is the latest in the series of cellular standards published by 3GPP. 5G NR specifications are defined in 3GPP release 15 and above. The smart phone or mobile phone compliant to 5G NR should support sub 6GHz, 6GHz with mmwave frequency bands.

5G mobile phone support fast download speed up to about 2 Gbps which is about 1.7 to 5 times faster compare to its predecessors (4G LTE). 5G phone also supports legacy modes from 2G, 3G to 4G LTE. It supports 4x4 MIMO, carrier aggregation (CA) and higher modulation schemes (64 QAM, 256 QAM etc.) to deliver higher data rates.

gsm mobile phone block diagram
Figure-1 : GSM Mobile Phone Block diagram

As shown in the figure-1, mobile phone consists of various hardware components it consists of RF Transceiver chip, GSM baseband part comprising of DSP and CPU, ADC/DAC chips, touchscreen display, battery, RAM, ROM, RF antenna, MIC, Speaker, camere, diplexer, micro-USB, SIM slots and more.

5G Smart phone Block Diagram

The figure-2 depicts 5G smart phone block diagram with internal hardware components. As shown the architecture include antenna array, 5G RF analog front end, baseband modem processing for 5G NR signal, ADC/DAC etc.

The other hardware components are processors (for multicore apps, graphics processing, audio processing, deep learning processsing, image signal processing ) , memory (DRAM, dislay, sensors, interface converter ICs (SPI, I2C, I3C, UART, USB, HDMI, SSI, MIPI etc.), bluetooth IC, WiFi IC and so on. 5G mobile processor houses CPU + DSP architecture in addition to ASIP (Application Specific Instruction-Set Processors) for 5G baseband processing.

5G cell Phone architecture
Figure-2 : 5G Mobile Phone Block diagram

As shown 5G smart phone also uses quadplexer filter. It consists of four ports other than single antenna port. Quadplexer functions as 4 port to 1 port multiplexer/de-multiplexer device.

Quadplexer filter
Figure-3 : Quadplexer filter

In order to support higher data rate and good coverage combination of massive MIMO and beamforming is exployed in 5G UE design. Hence other hardware components or ICs such as multiple PAs (Power Amplifiers), LNAs (Low Noise Amplifiers), digital/analog phase shifters, RF filters and SPDT switches are also incorporated in the 5G smart phone. As 5G NR mobile phone is backward compatible with previous cellular wireless standards it should also houses 2G/3G/4G ICs or multimode modem which supports all the cellular standards. For geolocation tracking mobile phone should have GPS/GNSS receiver ICs. For indoor wireless connectivity with routers for broadband internet connection, 5G mobile phone should have WiFi IC as per latest WLAN standard such as 802.11 ax/ac/ad. For bluetooth connectivity, 5G phone should support latest bluetooth standard such as Bluetooth 4.2/5/5.1.

PMICs (Power Management ICs) and low drop-out regulators (LDOs) are used in beamforming part of the 5G mobile phone.

5G NR mobile phone hardware components

5G mobile phone IPs
Image Credit : Synopsys, Inc.

Figure-4 depicts DesignWare IP solutions which can be used in 5G mobile phone design. Synopsys offers various solutions for 5G phones including processors, interface IPs, converter IPs, security IPs and so on.

Manufacturers of 5G NR mobile phone components


GSM or 5G Smart Phone related stuff


5G NR Numerology | 5G NR Terminology


5G NR Control channels | 5G NR Traffic Channels | 5G NR Reference Signals and sequences


5G TECHNOLOGY RELATED LINKS

RF and Wireless Terminologies