TMYTEK 稜研科技

When was the last time you questioned whether mmWave was hype or actually essential?
A few years ago, mmWave was seen as the overpromised layer of 5G. Too high-frequency. Too short-ranged. Too hard to deploy. And yet — here we are in 2025, building real-world systems that depend on it.

From the lab to the field, I’ve been working with mmWave in different applications, and the verdict is clear: It’s not just relevant. It’s foundational.

What went wrong with sub-6GHz alone? Sub-6GHz gave us excellent coverage, low-power devices, and a great entry point into 5G. But it also ran into unavoidable bottlenecks:


Congested spectrum in urban zones
Insufficient bandwidth for new industrial or FR2 UEs
Inability to support directional sensing and V2X precision
These aren’t just theoretical limitations — they show up every time we try to push performance in real deployments.

So where does mmWave step in? mmWave unlocks what sub-6GHz cannot:

✅ Massive bandwidth and spectrum flexibility
✅ Ultra-short latency and high-throughput bursts
✅ Beamforming-level spatial reuse
✅ Compact, high-gain hardware with directional control
These features aren’t nice-to-haves — they’re now necessary. Especially in dense environments, smart cities, and airborne/space-based links.

But isn’t mmWave too fragile to deploy? That’s the typical argument. But things have changed. With RIS (Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces), smart reflectors, and better antenna design, the question is no longer if mmWave works — it’s how we make it scalable.

In our work at TMYTEK, we’ve seen mmWave testbeds deliver consistent performance when paired with:

RIS-assisted beam rerouting
FR2 UE modules with dynamic beam tracking
OAI-based gNBs integrating mmWave RF frontends
But does this mean mmWave is the universal solution? Not quite. It still requires careful planning, especially with link budgets and hardware placement. It invites new challenges around thermal design, coordination, and integration. And yet — it opens the door for solutions that weren’t previously possible.

How far can mmWave really go? This is what I keep asking. And frankly, the answer depends a lot on how we frame the problem. Are we trying to stretch coverage? Improve latency? Enable sensing?

For each of these, mmWave has a different answer:

In SATCOM: It supports steerable, high-throughput gateway links with small form factors

In automotive: It delivers radar-level precision for situational awareness

In industrial 5G: It makes FR2-based high-throughput private networks viable

What’s more, when integrated with RIS and AI-driven control, mmWave systems can start making real-time decisions about how and where to reflect, refract, or suppress beams. That’s no longer RF — it’s network-level intelligence.

Do we really understand mmWave yet? The more I work with it, the more I realize how much is still unfolding. We’re not done testing. We’re not done refining. And that’s okay.

We should keep asking: What assumptions are we carrying from sub-6GHz that don’t apply here? What tools do we need to design and test these systems safely, at scale? And who are we building for — researchers, field engineers, or future autonomous platforms?

What’s next? If you’re in wireless R&D, mmWave isn’t a tech you can afford to ignore anymore. The hardware is catching up. The tools are open. And the real-world use cases are scaling faster than we expected.

So maybe the better question now is: “How are you integrating mmWave into your roadmap?”

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

TMYTEK 稜研科技

ESA Solution Fully Revealed!
Say goodbye to signal dropouts.
Watch how our beam switching works in real-time →

Medium
medium.com/@NextGen_Signal_Lab/unlocking-multi-orb…
X
x.com/Tmytek/status/1911702478955139104
#ESA #SATCOM #mmWave

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 3