6G: From Vision to Silicon Reality

by Jyrki Penttinen, Alphacore, Tempe, Arizona.

6G standardization is rapidly moving from high-level vision to concrete requirements and early technical specifications. Along with such demanding, new performance and functional requirements, realizing these ambitions in practice will depend critically on the forthcoming advances of microelectronics

The key 6G usage scenarios as per ITU

Alphacore is helping translate future 6G requirements into practical, scalable silicon solutions. Among a variety of Intellectual Property (IP) solutions, Alphacore has designed best-in-class power consumption analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) ranging from 8-12 bit resolutions. The current sampling rates of these solutions is up to 10 gigasamples per second, and Alphacore is extending the performance up to 64 gigasamples per second through ongoing research and development programs.

Through its participation in the Microelectronics Commons (ME Commons) SMART initiative, Alphacore is working on advanced mixed-signal and RF microelectronics that enable tightly integrated communication and sensing functionality within a single transceiver ASIC.