Hello Experts,
How many antennas are used in a Smartphone?
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I see now a days MIMO 4*4 for Wi- Fi 802.11 ax IEEE standard.
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Other components than antenna in a 5G Smartphone:
Essential Hardware and Software components in a 5G modem
A 5G modem is a complex piece of technology that includes various hardware and software components to facilitate high-speed wireless communication.
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RF (Radio Frequency) front-end
:The RF front-end consists of hardware components like filters, amplifiers, and antennas that transmit and receive radio signals. These components convert electrical signals to and from electromagnetic waves, enabling wireless communication with other devices
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Digital signal processing (DSP)
:The DSP unit processes the signals received from the RF front-end, performing tasks like filtering, demodulation, and decoding. This helps in converting the radio signals into digital data, which can be processed further by the modem
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Baseband processor
:The baseband processor manages various communication protocols, such as encoding, modulation, and error correction, to facilitate efficient data transmission. It also handles the control and management of radio resources, including frequency bands, power levels, and scheduling
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Memory and storage
:A 5G modem requires memory (e.g., RAM) and storage (e.g., flash memory) to temporarily store data and run various software components, such as firmware and device drivers
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Firmware and device drivers
:Firmware is the low-level software that controls the modem’s hardware components. Device drivers are the software components that allow the modem to communicate with the host device, such as a smartphone or a laptop
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Protocol stack
:The protocol stack is the collection of software layers responsible for implementing various communication protocols, such as TCP/IP, HTTP, and LTE/5G NR (New Radio). These protocols ensure reliable and efficient data transmission between devices
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Power management and thermal control
:The power management unit and thermal control components ensure that the 5G modem operates efficiently while consuming minimal power and maintaining a safe temperature. This is crucial for preserving battery life and preventing overheating in devices
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In summary, a 5G modem consists of essential hardware and software components, such as RF front-end, DSP, baseband processor, memory, firmware, protocol stack, and power management. These components work together to enable high-speed, reliable wireless communication in 5G networks 
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5G Cell Phone Architecture
5G cell phones has to be designed to comply either 3GPP New Radio (NR) Release 15 and also need to support legacy radio access technologies . Intial, 5G cell phones will be support Non-Stand Alone (NSA) protocol stack.
Requirements for 5G Cell Phone
- Comply to 3GPP Release 15 – NSA
- Support for Legacy technologies GSM/EDGE, WCDMA, LTE/LTE-A
- Support for Beam-forming, multi-antenna
- Support for low frequency bands (< 1 GHz), mid frequency bands (Below 6 GHz) and high frequency band (Above 6 GHz)
- Support for Non-3GPP technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC
- Support for GNSS/GPS for location tracking
- Support for different sensor like Proximity Sensor, Light sensor, Magnetometer,Gyroscope, Thermometer, Iris Scanner, Heart rate Monitor etc.
5G Cell Phone Block Diagram
A 5G cell phone have following two major building blocks:
- Baseband Processing Block
- RF Processing Block
Same has been depicted in below picture
Baseband Processing
A Baseband processing block is constitutes different cores (Application core, Multimedia core, communication core etc.). These core enables functioning for operating system, device drivers, interfacing with Mic, Camera, Screen etc. It also have baseband processor containing multi- RAT protocol stack software.
5G cell phone baseband software expected to support 5G NR in both frequency bands i.e. sub-6 GHz and mm wave bands. Along with this, protocol software need to support 4G LTE, 3G WCDMA and 2G GSM/EDGE. Software shall also includes protocol support for non-3GPP technologies like Wi-FI, Bluetooth and NFC for short range communication. Protocol software specific at physical layer , it need to support advance baseband signal processing algorithms to enable Massive MIMO, Beam forming and interference suppression features.
RF Processing
RF processing block is responsible to receive and transmit the baseband signals. As shown is above picture, this block is constitutes of a RF IC, front end module (FEM), LNA, Antennas Arrays and sensors.
RF IC enable co-existence for different radio access (Wi-FI, Cellular, GNSS etc) signals. 5G cell phone will have different antenna module to support wide range of frequency bands i.e. mm waves, sub-6 GHz bands and Low frequency bands.
RF section shall have some important sensors like Proximity Sensor,Light sensor, Barometer, Magnetometer, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Thermometer,Iris Scanner, Heart rate Monitor, Pulse Monitor
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Hi Experts,
Anyone has insight on Antennas placement on current 5G smartphones?
How are the antennas at the UE ends arranged?
Non-Coherent means, are they cross pole?
Are they placed at 4 different places on the phone?
What does partial coherent antenna mean in terms of antenna placement inside the phone?
Example: 4 antennas and a pair of 2 is coherent, and each pair is non-coherent with each other.
Can someone explain it or provide resources for the same
Additional question: How the non coherent and coherent antennas are placed for sub-6 and as well as for mmWave.
Non cross polarized and non coherent are 2 different concept cross polerized means antenna are designer with different polarization like ±45 this config will allow to achieve a spatial multiplexing and enhance diversity which is required for features like MIMO.
Coming to antenna placement, it will depends on device manufacturers.
I remember Samsung used to have such config for FR2 maximizing coverage and allowing the use of 2 layers in UL (like UL SU MIMO).
Some example for an old samsung phone:
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