6G, the next generation of communication technology, just took its most important first step. Discussions on the global standards for 6G have been ongoing since early 2021. Presenting a standard for 6G technology, the Draft IMT-2030 (hereinafter 6G) Framework Recommendation was developed by the International Telecommunication Union — Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R)¹ in June 2023. This milestone marks the completion of the first stage towards opening a new era of communication.

▲ (From left) Samsung Research’s HyoungJin Choi and Hyunjoong Lee participated in the development of the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation.

In July 2020, Samsung Electronics released a 6G white paper entitled “The Next Hyper-Connected Experience for All,” presenting various aspects related to 6G — including technical and societal megatrends, new services, requirements, candidate technologies and an expected timeline for standardization. As a result of the white paper’s worldwide recognition, Samsung’s researchers are now leading efforts to standardize the next-generation communication technologies. Samsung Newsroom sat down with HyoungJin Choi, Chair of ITU-R’s 6G Vision Group, from Samsung Research’s Advanced Communications Research Center (ACRC) Communications Standards Research Team, and Hyunjoong Lee from Samsung Research’s ACRC 6G Research Team who both participated in the development of the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation.

Finalization of the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation, the Blueprint of a New Communication Technology

The Draft 6G Framework Recommendation covers key information regarding the usage scenarios that 6G would pursue as well as capabilities and roadmaps toward the international standardization and commercialization of 6G.

As chair of ITU-R’s 6G Vision Group, HyoungJin Choi led the development of the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation. He described it as “the blueprint of a new communication technology,” and stressed its importance by saying: “Once it is completed, the detailed standardization activities from the definition of technical performance requirements to the finalization of technical specifications for radio interface technologies can be carried out.”

To construct a building, various decision-making processes from site development to construction methods are required. The process of developing new communication technologies is similar to this. Assuming that technology commercialization is a building, it is necessary to create a blueprint so that all construction procedures follow the same rules and norms. In our case of 6G technology, the blueprint is the Framework Recommendation. Additionally, it is necessary to determine the location and area of the land for building – in our example, this would be the frequency band. Therefore, it is essential to define a Framework Recommendation as a blueprint to build next-generation mobile telecommunication.

“From now on, standards development organizations — including the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) — will be developing technologies that satisfy the vision suggested by the 6G Framework, which will be submitted to ITU-R as candidate technologies,” said Choi. “Next, ITU-R will evaluate them and determine which one will be adopted as the 6G standard. When it comes to setting 6G capabilities or deciding the frequency bands needed for this communication technology, participating countries need to go through intense agreement processes.”

Expanding 6G Vision Beyond Its Limits

The question that remains for 6G is: How will this new communication technology be different?

“In the 6G era, the goal will be to provide diverse and expanded services in new areas such as ‘Integrated AI and Communication,’ ‘Integrated Sensing and Communication’ and ‘Ubiquitous Connectivity,’” said Hyunjoong Lee, a Samsung Research ACRC 6G Research Team member who actively participated in the development of the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation.

▲ Usage scenarios and overarching aspects of 6G (left) and capabilities of 6G (right) as outlined in the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation, proposing extended usage scenarios and improved technology capabilities compared to 5G.²

“In the 6G era, communication technologies are expected to enhance human experiences by seamlessly connecting the real world and the digital world,” said Lee. Thanks to digital twin and immersive communication technologies such as “XR” and “Holograms,” it is envisaged to provide various services such as educational and medical services to underdeveloped areas.

Working Through Differences: Developing a Framework for Everyone

Since the role and importance of communications have increased, setting the standard early on has become just as important as developing the technology itself. The completion of the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation is a valuable outcome of more than two and half years of countless discussions, compromises and agreements among the 193 member states and more than 900 member companies.

Choi played a leading role in setting the overall direction of the Recommendation’s development since he was appointed chair after building trust within the ITU-R over several years. Lee played the role of introducing and reflecting technical aspects into the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation. Although Choi and Lee played different roles in ITU-R, they moved as one to achieve a common goal. While they faced many challenges during the process, they achieved successful results thanks to their dedicated cooperation and great teamwork.

▲ HyoungJin Choi at the moment when the agreement was reached regarding the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation.

The past two years have not been easy for Choi, who had to balance various perspectives from its members as chair. “It was very difficult resolving the differences among the members,” he said. Choi had spent half the time worrying that there would continue to be unexpected issues right down until the very last minute. “Although it was a difficult process, it was very rewarding when the final agreement was reached among the members after everyone worked hard with the same determination and goal in mind.”

“As we headed to Switzerland, where the final meeting was held, we still felt worried,” noted Lee. “Fortunately, the main issues had been resolved well, and we were able to return home with a sense of relief and happiness.”

Turning the Dream of the 6G Era Into Reality

Samsung Research has been conducting extensive studies to lead 6G innovation. “We’ve been achieving meaningful results in our 6G technological development research using AI and Sensing technology recently,” said Lee. “We’ve conducted research on efficiently utilizing communication resources with AI. This can increase the communication speed experienced by users while significantly reducing the energy needed for transmitting the same amount of information, which ultimately provides more sustainable communication experiences.” When it comes to “Integrated Sensing and Communication” technologies, Lee explained: “We’re pursuing research and development on how to integrate communication technologies into daily use cases such as location tracking or the speed estimation of an object.”

Choi and Lee shared their plans and aspirations for the next generation of communications going forward. Both researchers hope for a future in which next-generation communication technology can become an established technology that enriches all of our lives.

“We will work hard to enable more abundant communication that transcends previous limitations through all kinds of connection types — including between people and people, people and machine, and even machine and machine,” said Choi. “We will do our best to achieve meaningful results in standardizing the spectrum and 6G requirements that can be carried out in the future.”

“I will continue to work so that 6G communication technology can be more impactful and relevant to people’s lives by providing more immersive experiences,” said Lee, regarding his own aspirations for the rest of his 6G journey. “While making the Framework Recommendation, my twin daughters were born, and I am proud to think that we are making the technology that they will use in the future.”

▲ (From left) HyoungJin Choi and Hyunjoong Lee making a “6G” sign with their hands.

Both Choi and Lee consider the completion of the Draft 6G Framework Recommendation as a new starting point for 6G technology. As Samsung and Samsung Research’s experts continue to usher the next era of communication technology, the reality of 6G commercialization draws closer every day.

¹ As the radiocommunication sector within the United Nations’ specialized agency for information and communication technologies agency, the International Telecommunication Union — Radiocommunication Sector oversees the standardization of radiocommunication technology and spectrum. It sets the standard for international mobile telecommunications (IMT) wireless communication technology and provides to its member states.
² For more information, please refer to Samsung Research’s “All set for 6G!”

“We have started on our journey long ago to understand, develop and standardize the 6G communications technology,” said Sunghyun Choi, Executive Vice President and Head of the Advanced Communications Research Center at Samsung Research.² “We are committed to taking the lead and sharing our findings to spread our vision to bring the next hyper-connected experience to every corner of life.”

6G Spectrum: Expanding the Frontier

6G would require spectrum with ultra-wideband contiguous bandwidth ranging from hundreds of MHz to tens of GHz to enable new services such as high-fidelity mobile holograms and truly immersive extended reality (XR) that are characterized by ultra-high speed communications and large amount of data. There is also growing demand for greater coverage. In response to these requirements, Samsung proposes considering all available bands for 6G, from low-band under 1 GHz, to mid-band in the 1-24 GHz range and high-band in the 24-300 GHz range.

It also highlights the importance of securing new bands for commercial deployments of 6G, as 5G networks will still be operational when the 6G deployment starts. The mid-band within the 7-24 GHz range is a candidate that can support faster data speed and reasonable coverage. The sub-terahertz (sub-THz) band in the 92–300 GHz range is being considered for support of ultra-high speed data rate. The white paper also mentions the refarming of existing bands used for 3G, 4G and 5G networks to 6G operation as another way to obtain all the spectrum necessary for 6G. In addition, it notes that research on forward-looking regulations and technologies on spectrum utilization is essential to provide efficient and flexible support of 6G and other services with the limited spectrum.

Recent Findings on 6G Candidate Technologies

Along with the release of the 6G spectrum white paper, Samsung also highlights its research findings on some of 6G candidate technologies – specifically about sub-THz band communications, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), cross division duplex (XDD), full duplex, artificial intelligence (AI)-based nonlinearity compensation (AI-NC) and AI-based energy saving (AI-ES).

Sub-THz is considered a spectrum candidate for 6G communications, which is expected to support the data rate up to 1 Terabits per second (Tbps), 50 times faster than 20 Gbps of 5G networks. Samsung successfully demonstrated 6 Gbps data rate at a 15 meters distance indoors in June 2021, and 12 Gbps at a 30 meters distance indoors and 2.3 Gbps at a 120 meters distance outdoors the following year.

RIS can improve the beam sharpness and can steer or reflect the wireless signal to a desired direction with the use of a metamaterial surface. It can reduce the penetration loss and blockage of high frequency signal, e.g., mmWave. Samsung demonstrated that their RIS lens technology can enhance the signal strength by four times and the beam steering range by 1.5 times.

XDD can improve the propagation distance of uplink signal up to two times in the TDD system by enabling the continuous uplink transmission in a small portion of the system bandwidth. Hence, XDD is capable of dramatically enhancing the coverage of the TDD system often used in high-frequency bands. Samsung demonstrated its core technology, self-interference cancellation at the base station.

With full duplex, the data transmission and reception can take place simultaneously using the same frequency so that the data speed increases up to two times. Samsung carried out a successful trial of the full duplex in the mmWave band with a base station and a terminal 100 meters apart, demonstrating the self-interference cancellation of over 114 dB and 1.9 times improvement in the data rate.

AI-NC utilizes AI at the receiver to compensate the signal distortion caused by the nonlinearity of a transmitter’s power amplifier and hence, can significantly improve the coverage and quality of high-rate data signals. Samsung demonstrated 1.9 times improvement of the coverage for high-speed uplink data and 1.5 times improvement of the transmission speed for a given coverage.

AI-ES capitalizes on AI to minimize energy consumption at the base station by adjusting the parameters controlling the power on/off of selected cells depending on traffic load, without affecting network performance. In a real data-based replicated simulation of base stations, Samsung applied AI-ES to demonstrate an energy saving of more than 10%.

Samsung plans to share more details and the findings of its 6G research at the company’s first Samsung 6G Forum (samsung6gforum.com) scheduled on May 13, 2022.

For more information on ‘Samsung Tech Forum’, please visit Samsung Research website at research.samsung.com/events.

¹ Samsung’s 6G spectrum white paper is available for download at research.samsung.com.

² Samsung Electronics’ advanced R&D hub, which leads the development of future technologies for its Device eXperience division

Under the theme of ‘The Next Hyper-Connected Experience for All.’, the Samsung 6G Forum will bring together leading global experts from academia and industry in the area of next-generation communications technologies to discuss in-depth about future of the technologies that will drive significant changes across the board by 2030.

The forum will be divided into two sessions and broadcast live online via Samsung’s YouTube channel. Each session will consist of talks by the participating experts, followed by a panel discussion.

Anyone interested in the forum is encouraged to visit the event website (https://Samsung6gForum.com) to register online from April 13 to May 13. Email notifications will be sent out for event schedule updates, and registered participants may leave questions on the website prior to each session.

“We are excited to host our first forum solely dedicated to sharing knowledge and insights on the 6G technology and to spreading our vision,” said Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research. “In addition to the Samsung AI Forum and the Samsung Security Tech Forum we hold every year as ‘Samsung Tech Forum’, this new Samsung 6G Forum will further strengthen our position within the field. We look forward to discussing related key topics with colleagues, experts, and anyone interested in the next-generation communications technology.”

Samsung Research, acting as Samsung Electronics’ advanced R&D hub, leads the development of future technologies for the company’s DX (Device eXperience) Division.

Samsung 6G Forum Schedule

Morning Session – 6G Air Interface (09:00am-12:10pm KST)

The morning session will begin with opening remarks by Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research. In-depth expert talks, under the theme ‘6G Air Interface,’ will be delivered by Jeffrey Andrews, Professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Charlie Zhang, Senior Vice President at Samsung Research America; Takehiro Nakamura, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the 6G Laboratories at NTT DOCOMO; and John Smee, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. A panel discussion led by Juho Lee, Fellow at Samsung Research, will follow afterward.

Afternoon Session – Intelligent Network for 6G (1:10pm-4:20 PM KST)

The afternoon session, under the theme ‘Intelligent Network for 6G,’ will invite Tarik Taleb, Professor at University of Oulu, Finland; SeungJoo Maeng, Master at Networks Business, Samsung Electronics; Byonghyo Shim, Professor at Seoul National University; and Shi Jin, Professor at Southeast University, China to give talks on Intelligent Network for 6G. This compelling talk session will be followed by a panel discussion led by Sunghyun Choi, Executive Vice President and Head of the Advanced Communications Research Center at Samsung Research.

For more information on ‘Samsung Tech Forum,’ please visit Samsung Research website at https://research.samsung.com/events.

Topics covered during the event included Samsung’s 5G vision and latest network innovations; its industry leading virtualized solutions to bring innovation for mobile operators and enterprises; its new range of chipsets to be embedded in the Samsung’s next generation 5G solutions; and the company’s complete lineup of private network solutions to transform industries.

Check out some highlights from the event below.

At the event, Samsung Networks highlighted key developments in its global expansion, which includes delivery of over four million 5G-ready radios around the world. Samsung focused on how it is advancing virtualization to drive next-generation networks, and leading 5G radio innovation by embedding its radios with the company’s latest in-house chipsets.

“We are delighted to discuss the infinite possibilities of wireless technology, as we continue our 5G journey, and pave the way towards the next phase of 5G,” said Paul (Kyungwhoon) Cheun, President and Head of Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung’s 5G vision includes bringing together the best global expertise and technical insights that can help operators and consumers take full advantage of 5G benefits. We’re grateful that our customers and partners have joined us on this journey, and look forward to achieving many more 5G milestones together.”

The following are key areas of advancement that Samsung Networks leadership covered at the virtual event:

Virtualization

Virtualization of an entire network from Radio Access Network (RAN) to Core will offer multiple benefits to operators, bringing greater efficiency, scalability and flexibility in network management, as well as easier upgrades through software implementations. Recent vRAN accomplishments include the following solutions:

• Samsung vRAN has virtualized all elements of a baseband unit. Backed by years of R&D, Samsung deployed the industry’s first fully-virtualized commercial 5G RAN delivered end-to-end (Link). Recently, the company demonstrated the capability to support multi-gigabit speeds of Massive MIMO radios on COTS servers (Link), showing how the performance of vRAN technology is now near the performance of custom hardware solutions.

• Samsung vCore is built with a cloud-native containerized architecture, enabling operational automation while ensuring optimized performance. With high adaptability and scalability, Samsung 5G vCore allows network operators to quickly launch new services and upgrade per business needs. Since introducing its first virtualized Core in 2015, the company has successfully commercialized the world’s first 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) vCore, and achieved a significant milestone in data processing capacity on its 5G Standalone (SA) Core (Link).

• Network management solutions help optimize operational efficiencies in virtualized networks. Samsung Cloud Orchestration, known as SCO, coordinates an entirely automated process of network deployment and optimization. Samsung’s Network Slice Manager supports simplified management of slice resources, while AI-based analytics provides intelligent analysis of network performance.

5G Radios

Samsung has been pioneering 5G technology to support RAN solutions for more than a decade, through research, standardization and commercial rollouts of its highly competitive 5G solutions. New developments are:

• In-House Chipsets: Samsung continues its leadership in chipset research and development, with an expanded line-up of new chipsets, including a 3^rd generation RFIC, 2^nd generation 5G modem and DFE-RFIC integrated chip (Link), part of the company’s initiative to help foster compact and efficient, yet high-performing 5G solutions.

• New Solutions: Samsung continues to expand its 5G radio lineup. The company recently unveiled its wideband radio (Link) supporting 400MHz of bandwidth in mid-band, and designed to help operators drive more flexible and cost-effective deployments. Also introduced are the next generation 5G Compact Macro and baseband units, as well as its new One Antenna Radio (Link), a solution that delivers a more compact form factor with antenna integration, offering simplified installation and deployment efficiencies.

Private Networks

Samsung has the capability to build reliable and secure private networks, leveraging its comprehensive solutions portfolio. The company’s industry-leading 5G solutions offer a resilient backbone to private 5G networks, introducing use cases such as smart factories (Link) and a real-time 4K video monitoring system (Link). Samsung also provides end-to-end PS-LTE solutions, from network equipment to applications and devices. The company is powering the world’s first 3GPP-compliant nationwide PS-LTE network in Korea (Link), and accomplished the demonstration of the industry’s first MCPTX video call on a cloud platform (Link).

6G Future Vision

As part of its networks overview, Samsung Networks: Redefined shares Samsung’s vision of 6G technology, and the world it will help create. Samsung stays ahead in preparing for new generations of wireless technologies. The company led 5G research and development even before 4G deployments, and is already preparing for 6G. Now, the company is set to accelerate 6G innovation, bringing hyper-connected experiences to users (Link). Samsung recently explored the potential of the Terahertz (THz) spectrum application for 6G wireless communications, demonstrating an end-to-end 140GHz wireless link using a fully digital beamforming solution (Link).

Samsung has pioneered the successful delivery of 5G end-to-end solutions including chipsets, radios and core. Through ongoing research and development, Samsung drives the industry to advance 5G networks with its market-leading product portfolio from fully virtualized RAN and Core to private network solutions and AI-powered automation tools. The company is currently providing network solutions to mobile operators that deliver connectivity to hundreds of millions of users around the world.

At the recent workshop on Terahertz communications at the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2021), researchers from Samsung Research, Samsung Research America, and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) introduced the potential impact that THz could have on next-generation 6G technology, demonstrating an end-to-end 140GHz wireless link using a fully digital beamforming solution.

“Samsung has been at the forefront of technological innovation and standardization of 5G and 6G. As we shared in our 6G vision white paper last year, we believe new spectrum opportunities at the THz spectrum will become a driving force of 6G technology. This demonstration can be a major milestone in exploring the feasibility of using the THz spectrum for 6G wireless communications,” said Senior Vice President Sunghyun Choi, an IEEE Fellow and Head of the Advanced Communication Research Center at Samsung Research.

The THz band in­cludes an enormous amount of available spectrum, which will enable wideband channels with tens of GHz-wide bandwidth. This could potentially provide a means to meet the 6G requirement of terabits per second data rate. The peak data rate can be 50 times faster than 5G and the over-the-air latency could potentially be reduced to one-tenth. These improvements will enable 6G hyper-connectivity services and ultimate multimedia experience, such as extended reali­ty (XR), high-fidelity mobile hologram, etc.

△ 16-channel 140GHz phased-array module (middle), dual-channel 140GHz RFICs (left), 128-element antenna array (right)

The end-to-end prototype system the researchers demonstrated consists of a 16-channel phased array transmitter and receiver modules, driven by CMOS (Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) RFICs (Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits), and a baseband unit to process signals with 2GHz bandwidth and fast adaptive beamforming. In the over-the-air test, the prototype system achieved real-time throughput of 6.2 Gbps over a 15-meter distance with adaptive beam steering capability at the Terahertz frequency.

Samsung and UCSB researchers have been working closely on the THz phased array module development, which is a key to the success of the test. The module requires sophisticated packaging technology to allow research test chips to be used in a large-scale array module. The precise digital beamforming calibration algorithm, developed by Samsung, enables these modules to achieve high beamforming gain.

△ Samsung researchers: Wonsuk Choi, Shadi Abu-Surra and Gary Xu with the THz proof-of-concept system

“Working together with UCSB, we have been able to overcome many technological challenges and develop this new THz proof-of-concept system to explore 6G use cases and deployment scenarios,” said Senior Vice President Charlie Zhang, an IEEE Fellow and Head of the Standards and Mobility Innovations Team at Samsung Research America. “Samsung and UCSB researchers will continue to push the technological boundaries to bring 6G and THz communication closer to reality.”

△ Professor Mark Rodwell, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

UCSB’s group, led by the Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Mark Rodwell, first developed the 140GHz transmitter and receiver RFIC in 2017, as part of a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the U.S.

“We bring our knowledge of advanced mmWave technologies, in particular the THz spectrum above 100GHz, focusing on devices and integrated circuits, while Samsung provides its expertise in wireless systems and cellular networks,” said professor Mark Rodwell, an IEEE Fellow and winner of the IEEE Sarnoff Award and the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award.

Samsung released a white paper in July 2020 titled “The Next Hyper-Connected Experience for All” outlining the company’s 6G vision, which is to bring the next hyper-connected experience to every corner of life. To accelerate research for 6G, Samsung Research, the advanced R&D hub within Samsung Electronics’ end-product business, founded its Advanced Communications Research Center in May 2019.

Samsung Electronics today announced that Hyoungjin Choi, Principal Engineer at Samsung Research was appointed as the Chair of the Vision Group on IMT towards 2030 and beyond (6G) at the International Telecommunication Union – Radiocommunication (ITU-R) Working Party 5D, WP 5D Assembly, held online from March 1 to 12.

The 6G Vision Group was newly launched at the recent ITU-R meeting. The group is in charge of establishing the 6G Vision, which includes defining the key capabilities, working on technology development, and creating timelines on standardization and commercialization of 6G.

At ITU-R, Samsung Electronics has been recognized for its advanced technology and its contribution to the standardization of 5G as the Chair of 5G Vision. Samsung will continue to show its leadership within the ITU-R’s 6G standardization efforts.

Samsung Research, the company’s advanced R&D hub that leads the development of future technologies for its SET (consumer product) Business, covers various aspects related to 6G research as stated in its 6G White Paper. These include technical and societal megatrends, new services, requirements, candidate technologies and an expected timeline of standardization. To accelerate research for 6G, Samsung Research also founded its Advanced Communications Research Center in 2019.

“Samsung has been leading global efforts regarding 6G through our activities, including publishing the 6G White Paper in July 2020,” said Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research. “We plan to continue our active participation and contribute to the development of standards for the ITU-R 6G Vision as well as the 3GPP technical specification.”

ITU-R is an international decision-making body that is in charge of radiocommunication regulations with 193 member states. It also manages global mobile telecommunication standards and has provided guidance and roadmap for next generation communication R&D by defining the vision for next generation mobile telecommunication, such as 4G and 5G. Starting with completing the 6G Vision by 2023, ITU-R plans to develop technical requirements and recommendations for 6G through industry standards organizations such as 3GPP. Out of those candidate technologies for 6G, the technologies that pass ITU-R’s evaluation will be approved as the global standards for 6G around 2030.