Technology
BeammWave develops radio system solutions for 5G and 6G in the mmWave (24.25–29.5 GHz; 37–40 GHz) and cmWave (10–20 GHz) bands. At these frequencies, beamforming is needed to optimize performance.
Our scalable distributed digital beamforming concept, currently covered by more than 55 patent families, eliminates the performance and design issues that exist with analog beamforming solutions.
Multi-Beam Support
Advanced Development Platform
Lower Power Consumption
Dynamic, real-time beam forming
Exceptional NLOS
performance
The Wireless Challenge
As wireless technology continues to evolve, the demand for greater capacity and lower costs per bit is higher than ever. Networks must handle more users, support faster data rates, and improve efficiency, all without increasing costs.
To address these demands, 5G and other technologies have turned to high-frequency spectrum, like mmWave (FR2). However, the industry has yet to deliver a working and cost-efficient solution that fully capitalizes on these high frequencies.
Key Industry Challenges
More Capacity and Lower Costs Per Bit
Delivering increased data transmission without a rise in cost, ensuring networks handle more users efficiently.
Higher Data Rates
Enabling faster communication speeds to support bandwidth-heavy applications like video streaming and virtual reality.
Lower Latencies
Reducing response time for real-time performance in critical applications like gaming and remote-control systems.
Better Energy Efficiency
Minimizing power consumption for both devices and infrastructure, leading to longer battery life and sustainable networks.
Lower Device Costs
Making advanced wireless technology accessible to a broader audience by reducing manufacturing and deployment costs.
Beamforming
Beamforming improves wireless communication by directing signals where they’re needed most. But not all beamforming is created equal—analog and digital approaches come with different trade-offs in performance, adaptability, and complexity.
Antenna
Transceiver
Phase shifter
Up/Down Converter
ADC/DAC
Analog Beamforming
Well-proven Design at the Cost of Performance
Current mmWave 5G relies on analog beamforming, combining signals before digitization to simplify processing. But this limits adaptability and directional precision, making it less effective in dynamic environments.
Pros
- Well-proven transceiver architecture, low design risk.
- Reduces digital processing need since signal combining is made at antenna level using analog phase shifters.
Cons
- Directionally blind: Can’t distinguish individual antenna information, limiting precision.
- Slow to adapt: Beam-sweeping is trial-and-error, handling only one radio signal direction at a time.
- Thermal issues in the radio front-end during transmission due to close proximity of power amplifiers for each antenna.
Traditional Digital Beamforming
Precision and Speed for Advanced Applications
Digital beamforming processes signals from all antennas digitally, enabling simultaneous reception and transmission in multiple directions. Since all antenna information is in the digital domain, beamforming is transformed to a mathematical problem eliminating the need for beam-sweeping, ensuring rapid adaptability and comprehensive coverage.
Pros
- Highly adaptable: No beam-sweeping delays, enabling instant beam tracking.
- Multi-directional: Can receive from and transmit in multiple directions simultaneously.
Cons
- High complexity and resource-intensive: Requires more complex hardware and higher power consumption.
- Costlier setup: Increased system demands lead to higher implementation costs.
A New Way – The Beam Way
BeammWave Digital Beamforming
By viewing beamforming from a system level, a low-complexity distributed digital beamforming architecture can be designed, giving performance on par with traditional digital beamforming at a complexity corresponding to an analog beamforming solution.
The core of the solution is a set of individual transceiver chips with their respective antennas, arranged in a layout tailored to the application. This set of transceiver chips is connected to a Digital BeamForming Accelerator (DBFA) chip. The DBFA digitizes the analog zero-IF signals from the individual RFFE transceiver chips, and reduces digital processing complexity to a level comparable to an analog beamforming solution, while maintaining digital beamforming performance and benefits.
Our beamforming architecture does not require a traditional antenna matrix with half-wavelength spacing. Antenna placement can instead be tailored to the application: distributed layouts for efficient spherical coverage in smartphones, or arrays for sector coverage in base stations and CPE. Each RFFE chip is placed close to its antennas to minimize mmWave routing, while analog zero-IF signals connect it to a central DBFA.
Contributing to 3GPP standardisation
BeammWave has been a member of 3GPP since 2022, actively contributing to mobile communication standardisation. Our work focuses primarily on RAN1 and RAN4, covering physical-layer design and radio performance requirements. We contribute technical proposals and analyses to the study of digital beamforming for 6G in the FR2 frequency range, bringing practical chip and system expertise to the standardisation process.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
Does the architecture require a traditional antenna array?
No. BeammWave’s architecture does not require a traditional antenna matrix with half-wavelength spacing. Antenna placement can be tailored to the application: distributed layouts for efficient spherical coverage in smartphones, or arrays for sector coverage in base stations and CPE. Each RFFE chip is placed close to its antennas to minimize mmWave routing.
What does the Digital Beamforming Accelerator do?
The Digital Beamforming Accelerator (DBFA) digitizes the analog zero-IF signals from the distributed RFFE chips and performs the core digital beamforming processing. This substantially reduces the data rates between the DBFA and the baseband processor, while preserving the performance and flexibility of digital beamforming.
Does the baseband need to process a separate data stream from every antenna?
No. The analog zero-IF signals from the distributed RFFE chips are routed to the Digital Beamforming Accelerator (DBFA), which digitizes them and performs the core digital beamforming processing. The baseband receives the processed signals rather than the full antenna-level data streams, substantially reducing its processing demands and the data rates between the DBFA and the baseband. Control remains with the baseband.
How can we evaluate the technology?
ADP1 is a complete over-the-air development and evaluation system that includes both ends of the wireless link and carries 5G-coded traffic. It combines BeammWave’s RF transceivers, antennas, FPGA-based Digital BeamForming Accelerator (DBFA) functionality and control software.
RFFE2840 is available for sampling in development projects. ADP1 provides DBFA functionality through an FPGA implementation, enabling customers to evaluate the architecture and begin baseband integration.
Contact us to discuss a demonstration, sampling, your application requirements and baseband integration.
Does digital beamforming need to be used at both ends of the wireless link?
No. For example, a device using BeammWave’s digital beamforming can communicate with a base station using analog beamforming — and vice versa.
Each end of the wireless link can use analog, hybrid or digital beamforming independently. What must match are the frequency bands, radio signals and communication protocols, not the beamforming architecture.
This means manufacturers can adopt BeammWave’s technology without requiring the equipment at the other end of the link to adopt digital beamforming.
Does digital beamforming require changes to mobile communication standards?
No. Digital beamforming can be implemented within existing 5G NR standards. It changes how signals are processed inside the device or base station, while communication over the radio link follows the applicable standard. BeammWave’s work in 3GPP on future 6G standards is a separate activity, aimed at enabling future systems to take fuller advantage of digital beamforming.
Is beamforming only used for transmission?
No. Beamforming is used for both transmission and reception. During transmission, signals from multiple antennas are combined to direct energy towards the intended receiver.
With BeammWave’s digital beamforming, we can listen in all directions simultaneously and then combine the received signals for the best possible reception from one or more directions.
How does BeammWave track changes in the phone’s orientation?
By listening in all directions simultaneously, we calculate the beam direction directly from the received signals, rather than searching through fixed beam positions in a codebook. This lets us respond immediately to small changes in orientation, helping maintain the mmWave connection and reducing the need to fall back to sub-6 GHz.
Which frequency bands does RFFE2840 support?
RFFE2840 supports 24.25–29.5 GHz, covering 5G NR bands n258, n257 and n261, and 37–40 GHz, covering n260.
BeammWave’s distributed digital beamforming architecture can also be applied to other frequency ranges. This requires RF transceivers designed for those bands; RFFE2840 itself does not cover the 10–20 GHz range mentioned in our broader technology description.
How small is the RFFE2840?
The RFFE2840 silicon die measures just 1.25 × 1.25 mm and contains two RF transceiver chains supporting 24.25–29.5 GHz and 37–40 GHz.
Its small size allows each chip to be placed close to its antennas, minimizing mmWave signal routing and enabling flexible antenna placement to suit the application.
What is BeammWave doing in 3GPP?
BeammWave has been a member of 3GPP since 2022, contributing technical proposals and analyses primarily within RAN1 and RAN4, which cover physical-layer design and radio performance requirements.
BeammWave successfully brought digital beamforming onto the 6G standardisation agenda. The ongoing study evaluates its potential as a reference architecture for user equipment in the FR2 frequency range, drawing on BeammWave’s chip and system expertise.
The study is an important step towards future standards; final specifications remain subject to the 3GPP consensus process. Digital beamforming can already be implemented within existing 5G NR standards.
Read more about BeammWave’s contribution to 3GPP.
How is BeammWave’s technology protected?
BeammWave’s intellectual property portfolio includes more than 55 patent families covering innovations in chip design, system architecture and signal processing.
These complementary areas of protection support our distributed digital beamforming approach, from individual RF transceivers to system-level processing and antenna integration.
Explore our product portfolio.
Does digital beamforming use more power than analog beamforming?
Not necessarily. Power consumption depends on the architecture, components and operating conditions, rather than simply whether beamforming is analog or digital.
BeammWave’s architecture addresses key sources of power consumption by reducing the processing demands on the baseband and the data rates between the Digital BeamForming Accelerator (DBFA) and the baseband.
Our September 2020 whitepaper found that digital beamforming could achieve power consumption at least on par with analog beamforming using components available at the time. This conclusion comes from an architectural analysis, rather than measurements of a complete BeammWave chipset.
Read the power-efficiency whitepaper.
How does the architecture scale to deliver the required transmit power?
BeammWave distributes transmit power across multiple RF transceiver chips, each placed close to its antennas. Their transmitted signals combine coherently over the air in the intended beam direction.
The required radiated power is achieved by scaling the number of active transceiver and antenna paths, together with the output power per path and antenna gain. Higher-power applications can therefore use more distributed transmitters, rather than concentrating all power generation in a single compact module.
One or more Digital BeamForming Accelerators (DBFAs) coordinate the antenna signals. This allows the architecture to scale across smartphones, CPE and base stations while distributing heat across the product.
How does BeammWave’s solution connect to the baseband?
The RF transceiver chips connect to the Digital BeamForming Accelerator (DBFA) through analog zero-IF I/Q interfaces. The DBFA digitizes these signals and performs the core digital beamforming processing.
The DBFA connects to the baseband through a high-speed digital interface, substantially reducing the data rates and processing demands compared with sending separate antenna-level streams directly to the baseband. Control remains with the baseband.
Integration requirements depend on the application and baseband implementation. ADP1 provides a platform for evaluating the architecture and developing integration together with BeammWave.
Contact us to discuss your baseband and interface requirements.
Can BeammWave’s technology be used for satellite communications?
Yes. BeammWave’s distributed digital beamforming architecture can be extended to satellite terminals, including Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN). Its flexible antenna placement and multi-beam capabilities are relevant to these applications.
Satellite systems require RF components designed for their frequency bands and operating requirements. The current RFFE2840 supports terrestrial mmWave bands; applying the architecture to NTN requires RF components adapted to the relevant satellite bands.
Contact us to discuss your application.
Product Portfolio
Smarter Beamforming, Seamless Connectivity
We deliver unique ready-to-integrate distributed digital beamforming solutions that unlock the bold promises of 5G. BeammWave’s revolutionary approach to mmWave and beamforming delivers inexpensive radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs), supporting efficient digital beamforming and antenna arrays, to be used in any connected application.
Advanced Development Platform
A complete development and evaluation system for end-to-end over-the-air (OTA) testing of BeammWave’s digital beamforming concept, including both ends of the wireless link and carrying 5G-coded traffic.
Digital BeamForming Accelerator
A digital beamforming accelerator chip that substantially reduces baseband processing demands and data rates between the DBFA and the baseband, while preserving digital beamforming performance and leaving control with the baseband.
RFFE2840
A versatile RF front-end featuring tri-band support across 24.25–29.5 GHz (n258 and n257/261) and 37–40 GHz (n260), with dual transceivers.
Same Hardware,
Many Applications
Whether it’s a smartphone, CPE (Customer Premises Equipment), or a small base station, the same hardware can be adapted to different configurations and transceiver setups.
Smartphones
Simulations show approximately 50% higher system throughput compared with analog beamforming in the evaluated smartphone scenarios. BeammWave’s digital beamforming architecture helps maintain a stable mmWave connection through small changes in device orientation during handheld use.
CPE for Fixed Wireless Access
Our technology achieves extended non-line-of-sight (NLOS) mmWave coverage and reduces thermal problems seen in current analog solutions.
Base Stations
Our distributed digital beamforming solution can be integrated into different base station architectures, including O-RAN, enabling multi-beam scheduling to improve system capacity in the mmWave frequency range.
Unlock the Future of 5G
with BeammWave
Ready to elevate your connectivity solutions? Contact us today to learn how BeammWave can transform your 5G applications.
