Optical Interconnects for Future Advanced Antenna Systems: Architectures, Requirements and Technologies

This paper aims to give an outlook of future advanced antenna systems for 5G and 6G wireless networks. The trend to increase the peak data rate and to reduce latency and power consumption will continue in the future. This will be made possible by the exploitation of millimeter wave frequency bands and by the introduction of massive multiple-input multiple-output antenna technology which requires a transformation of the antenna hardware architectures and technologies. Advanced antenna systems based on arrays of several hundreds of antenna elements are under development and to keep the fronthaul throughput manageable, some digital signal processing functions have been moved inside the antenna, creating the need to distribute very big volumes of data at high bit rate across the antenna. The characteristics and hardware architecture of future advanced antenna systems are discussed and the relevant interconnect requirements are presented. A new type of monolithically integrated optical transceiver is presented, integrating electronic and photonic circuits on the same chip with high bandwidth density, high energy efficiency and low latency. The transceiver technology is discussed and results of experimental demonstrations are given.