The UK 5G market is at tipping point according to the latest IDTechEx report.
The report, with the catchy title “5G Technology, Market and Forecasts 2020-2030,” sees 5G is considered as one of the largest market opportunities in the coming years, with large scale roll-out of infrastructures and rapid adoption of 5G devices and services.
“5G will not only accelerate the growth and expansion of telecom; it will also redefine and accelerate industries such as automotive, entertainment, computing, and manufacturing. With high throughput and low latency, 5G is the most promising technique to tackle the high-value areas including 3D robotic control, virtual reality monitoring and remote medical control. Those are the problems that today’s technologies have not addressed yet”, the report said.
5G was first deployed in 2018, now over there are 80 operators in 42 countries/territories that have launched commercial 5G services. The 5G market is expected to be around $720 billion by 2030, mainly contributing from the mobile service, fixed wireless services and narrow-band IoT.
The enormous investment required to develop 5G and the unclear map of killing applications for 5G also put the future of 5G into a test.
he IDTechEx report said that one of the key applications that is helping is with AI and intelligent cameras, such as autonomous mobile robot and remote real-time manufacturing. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, healthcare applications have been adopted quickly, including telehealth, remote hospital operation, and elderly care.
The report said that any characteristic benefits promised by 5G will operate at high frequency (above 26 GHz), i.e. mmWave 5G. Such high frequency requires new materials and different device design. On one hand, high frequency leads to more significant transmission loss, which offers opportunities for low-loss materials with small dielectric constant and small tan loss.
Advanced packaging designs aims at reducing the signal loss by integrated passive components into the whole package.
The report points out that high frequency needs high power to drive and will generate more heat. Power amplifiers with higher power density and higher gain will be essential, as well as thermal management.
