China Communications • June 2014
53
2015 [13]. In 2016, two thirds of the WLAN
ICs will include millimeter-wave band such as
60 GHz band. Additionally, the China market
is expected to grow faster than worldwide Wi-
Fi ICs growth.
The rest of this paper is organized as fol-
lows. Section II reviews standards process
of IEEE 802.11aj (45GHz), followed by the
frequency spectrum allocation in Section III.
Section IV gives the channel measurement
and modeling at 45 GHz band. The millime-
ter-wave MIMO for PHY enhancement is
presented in Section V. Finally, Section VI
concludes the paper.
II. STANDARDS PROCESS REVIEW
In 2010, a new study group SG5 (also known
as Q-LinkPAN SG) whose main objective is
to research the possibilities of 45 GHz band
for WLAN application was setup in Chinese
Wireless Personal Access Network (CWPAN)
Standard Working Group. The chair of this
SG5 is Professor Hong, Southeast University.
In April 2011, Prof. Hong Wei reported to
Radio Management Bureau of the Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)
of the People’s Republic of China on the
progress of CWPAN SG5 Q-LINKPAN and
suggested the following options of spectrum
allocation in 45 GHz band:
• Option 1: 40 GHz – 45 GHz
• Option 2: 40 GHz – 47 GHz
• Option 3: 45 GHz – 50 GHz
In January 2012, a new study group (SG)
IEEE 802.11cmmw was setup [14], [15] in
IEEE 802.11 working group. The objective of
this SG is to study possibilities of dening the
enhancements to support operation in Chinese
Millimeter Wave frequency bands including
the 59-64 GHz and the 45 GHz frequency
band to enable multi-Gbps throughput and
lower power. With the efforts of 802.11cmmw
SG, P802.11aj PAR and 5C’s were nished in
July 2012.
The task group TGaj was formally estab-
lished in September 2012. This amendment
defines modifications to the IEEE 802.11ad
to provide maximum 6.75 Gbps throughput.
However, the coverage of 802.11ad is a very
short range because of much higher path loss
at 60 GHz band than at 2.4/5 GHz bands.
Actually, before 802.11ad, two other
60GHz standards ECMA-387 [11] and IEEE
802.15.3c [12] finished their standardization
processes. The standard ECMA-387 species
a PHY, a MAC, and an HDMI protocol adap-
tation layer (PAL). In their fast-track approv-
al procedure, ISO/IEC JTC 1 amended and
approved the 1st edition as ISO/IEC 13156:
2009. The 2nd edition of ECMA-387 was
also published in December 2010. The IEEE
802.15.3 task group 3c (TG3c) was established
in March 2005. The task group TG3c devel-
oped a new millimeter-wave-based alternative
PHY at 60 GHz band for the existing 802.15.3
Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN)
Standard 802.15.3-2003. IEEE 802.15.3c-
2009 was published on September 11, 2009.
The channel bandwidth and carrier frequencies
of 802.15.3c-2009 and 802.11ad are all same.
All three separate 60 GHz standards
ECMA-387, IEEE 802.15.3c, and IEEE
802.11ad are unaffectedly inuenced by their
own technical heritages. 60 GHz The PHY
and the MAC of ECMA-387 were developed
to provide high rate WPAN transport. The
MAC of ECMA-387 is rooted from WiMedia
UWB MAC with necessary changes to adapt
it to characteristics of 60 GHz. The 802.15.3c
task group developed a millimeter-wave-based
alternative PHY to work with the existing
802.15.3 WPAN MAC Standard 802.15.3-
2003. For IEEE 802.11ad, it is another install-
ment of the successful 802.11 family and so
it naturally maintains its affinity with 802.11
in many aspects. One key advantage of IEEE
802.11ad over the other standards working in
the 60 GHz band is that it builds upon the al-
ready very successful market of 802.11 in the
2.4/5 GHz bands.
According to ABI Research, demand for
WLAN ICs is expected to grow at about 20%
Compound Annual Growth Rate from 2012
to 2016 and worldwide Wi-Fi IC sales are
expected to exceed 2 Billion units per year in