Sivers Semiconductor AB’s 7-15 GHz beamforming chips for 5G/6G FR3 applications are now available for network deployment as well as defense arrays.
Called Daybreak ICs, the chips deliver broadband transmit power and efficiency plus low receiver noise. The ICs also support integration with external front-end modules.
Sivers Semiconductor chipset was developed under the $6 million U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Microelectronics Commons 5G/6G project that Sivers was awarded in 2024. Raytheon and Ericsson were partners in the endeavor.
“Daybreak is already getting a lot of interest from several customers,” said Harish Krishnaswamy, managing director of the wireless division at Sivers Semiconductors. “This product will accelerate our customer solutions to the market for base stations and CPE devices as the interest in FR3 continues to grow worldwide.”
What is FR3?
FR3 frequencies are considered by some to be the next real deployments for 5G Advanced and future 6G networks. The frequencies — between 7.126 GHz and 24.25 GHz — sits between where the majority of 5G sub-7 GHz bands reside and future millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies are projected to be.
The area has more bandwidth than standard FR1/Sub-7 GHz 5G but better coverage and indoor reach than FR2/mmWave 5G. Standards body 3GPP is still developing the standard for FR3, but according to Yole Intelligence, the sector could be worth about $1.3 billion in 2030 for penetration assumptions in base stations and CPE.
Some of the use cases for FR3 include:
- Wide-area capacity for mobile broadband for urban and suburban mobile traffic.
- Fixed wireless access (home broadband) to give more bandwidth to users in the home.
- Extended reality (XR) that requires a wider bandwidth than current levels can deliver.
- Private wireless networks for robotics or automation to meet the massive demand for bandwidth between talking to each other and other networks.
