NTT develops quantum random number generator

Researchers at NTT have developed a quantum random number generator (QRNG) that exploits the probabilistic nature of quantum measurements to generate genuine random numbers. 

The breakthrough could be implemented as a server that repeatedly produces fixed blocks of fresh, certifiable, public random bits. Applications might include communication networks with high security enhanced by quantum technologies.

NTT said previous high-performance QRNGs require fully characterized quantum devices, which could be subject to security loopholes. Although there are QRNGs that are secure with realistic devices, they need to run for a long time to accumulate sufficient randomness. This results in high latency from the initial request to the delivery of the requested random bits. It is desirable for real-world applications to realize QRNGs of low latency, high rate and high security. In this work, by developing an efficient method for certifying randomness (a collaborative work with the researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology) and by measuring the arrival time of an optical pulse with time-bin encoding, NTT was able toshow that every 0.1 seconds a block of 8192 quantum-safe random bits can be generated, enabling low-latency high-rate performance. 

https://www.ntt.co.jp/news2021/2102e/210224b.html

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European Commission plans €900 million for 6G research

by Benedict Chua, Associate Editor 

The European Commission is backing a public R&I investment of €900 million over its new long-term budget period 2021-2027 to coordinate research activities on 6G technology under Horizon Europe as well as 5G deployment initiatives under the Connecting Europe Facility Digital and other programmes.

A first set of 6G projects worth €60 million launched last month under the 5G-PPP with the Hexa-X flagship developing a first 6G system concept complemented by 8 projects investigating specific technologies for 6G.

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/europe-puts-forward-proposal-joint-undertaking-smart-networks-and-services-towards-6g

Europe's Hexa-X project aims to set 6G groundwork

Monday, December 07, 2020  6G  

The Hexa-X project, which is funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, will begin on January 1, 2021 with a focus on developing the vision for future 6G systems.  The project will bring together a consortium of major ICT, industry and academic stakeholders. Ericsson and Nokia have been selected to lead the effort.

Magnus Frodigh, Vice President and Head of Ericsson Research says: “We are proud to be the technical lead of the Hexa-X project, together with a strong line up of consortium partners from industry and academia. In 2030, society will have been shaped by 5G for ten years. While we continue to evolve 5G, now is also the right time to start collaborative 6G research activities. The Hexa-X project will be an important vehicle for joint exploration across European industry and academia, together shaping how exponential technology evolution will meet anticipated demands and opportunities for the 6G era. The road to 6G begins today.”

Peter Vetter, Head of Access and Devices Research, Nokia Bell Labs, said: “Even though there is still a lot of innovation in 5G with the release of new standards, we are already exploring 6G in our research lab. In the 6G era we will see applications that will not only connect humans with machines but also connect humans with the digital world. Such a secure and private connection can be used for preventive healthcare or even to create a 6G network with a sixth sense that intuitively understands our intentions, making our interactions with the physical world more effective and anticipating our needs, thereby improving our productivity.”

Six challenges for Hexa-X

• Connecting intelligence: AI/Machine Learning (ML) technologies need to be a vital and trusted tool for significantly improved efficiency and service experience, serving humans
• Network of networks: multiple types of resources need to be aggregated to create a digital ecosystem that grows more and more capable, intelligent, and heterogeneous, eventually creating a single network of networks
• Sustainability: energy-optimized digital infrastructure for a reduced global ICT environmental footprint, as well as delivering effective and sustainable digitization tools for global industry, society and policymakers
• Global service coverage: efficient and affordable solutions for global service coverage, connecting remote places
• Extreme experience: extreme bitrates, extremely low (imperceptible) latencies, seemingly infinite capacity, and precision localization and sensing
• Trustworthiness: ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of communications and delivering data privacy, operational resilience and security 

https://hexa-x.eu/

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Europe's 5G Infrastructure Association opens memberships

The 5G Infrastructure Association, as the industrial partner of the 5G PPP, has extended an invitation to all organisations and enterprises to join the new "Smart Networks and Services" (SNS) European Partnership in the framework of the Horizon Europe programme.

Within the SNS, the 5G IA will be the private side representative, jointly managing the Partnership with the EU. The SNS Partnership aims to support European technological sovereignty on Smart Networks and Services. It will contribute to enable the digital and green transitions and will allow European players to develop the technology capacities for 6G systems as the basis for future digital services towards 2030. 

https://5g-ia.eu

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Tektronix and Anritsu offer PCI Express 5.0 testing

Tektronix, in collaboration with Anritsu, introduced  a new PCI EXPRESS 5.0 transceiver (Base and CEM) and reference clock solution for pre-compliance testing. The collaboration between Tektronix and Anritsu enables receiver verification, complementing a world-class transmitter and reference clock test suite.

The PCI EXPRESS 5.0 Base Specification boasts bandwidth of 128 GB/s and the upcoming PCI EXPRESS 6.0 specification will push this to 256 GB/s and include multi-level PAM4 signaling.

The PCI EXPRESS 5.0 transceiver and reference clock solution from Tektronix was developed and continues to be aligned with the 5.0 Base specification, 5.0 CEM specification, and 5.0 test specifications.

Key features include:

• PCI EXPRESS 5.0 (32 GT/s) automated Base & CEM transceiver solution running on DPO700000SX series 70 GHz real time oscilloscope and MP1900A Signal Quality Analyzer-R series (BERT) from Anritsu
• New Receiver automation software from Tektronix with highly efficient algorithms for stressed eye calibration at 32 GT/s & 16 GT/s
• State-of-the-art tool support including SigTest Phoenix with highly parallelized processing to reduce overall test time
• Multiple form factors (M.2 & U.2) and Clocking Architectures (CC, SRNS, SRIS)
• Follows real time evolution of the 5.0 Base specification with 32 GT/s uncorrelated jitter and pulse width jitter measurements implemented to optimize A/D range and minimize noise
• Addresses the increasing challenges of 100 MHz reference clock jitter and signal integrity measurements through full integration with the Silicon Labs "PCIe Clock Jitter" tool and Tektronix's DPOJET tool
• Industry first pre compliance test fixtures for PCIe 5.0 CEM testing

The companies note that the server/storage industry is rapidly transitioning to PCI EXPRESS 5.0 due to new requirements imposed by 400G Ethernet, cloud AI and modeling (co-processors), storage capacity, and NAND-based storage. This rapid progression brings an entirely new problem set for test and measurement traditionally split into Base silicon level validation and CEM compliance testing with the PCI-SIG.

"Electronics designers today demand future-proofing to protect their innovations' longevity into tomorrow," says Takeshi Shima, senior vice president at Anritsu corporation. "Providing a solution through Gen6 gives our customers a sense of our commitment to stay with them on the cutting edge of development."

"As PCIe becomes faster and more complex with the emergence of the Gen5 standard, engineers are faced with new design challenges, shorter time-to-market windows, new standards specifications to understand and apply, and new compliance testing requirements," says David Bouse, PCI EXPRESS systems engineer at Tektronix. "It is vital to have a comprehensive test equipment and software solution in place prior to workshop certification. Our PCIe 5.0 test and debug solution can easily guide the engineer through compliance testing and debug to ensure their design meets new standards with a high degree of confidence."

http://news.tektronix.com/2021-02-25-Tektronix-introduces-PCI-Express-R-5-0-transceiver-and-reference-clock-solution

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HPE to build supercomputer for Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute

KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, one of Sweden’s largest technical universities dedicated to science and engineering research, has selected Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to build a new supercomputer to improve modeling and simulation of complex data.

The HPE Cray EX supercomputer will feature over 65,000 CPU cores and it be ready for research use in July 2021. The second phase of the installation will consist of GPUs which will be installed later this year and be ready for use in January 2022.

The HPE Cray EX supercomputer will include HPE Slingshot for purpose-built HPC networking to address demands for higher speed and congestion control for data-intensive workloads. It will also feature next generation AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct GPU accelerators to improve efficiency and achieve the performance required to process and harness insights from computationally complex data.

The new supercomputer, which KTH has named “Dardel” in honor of the Swedish novelist, Thora Dardel, and her first husband, Nils Dardel, the post-impressionist painter, will replace KTH’s current flagship system, Beskow, and will be housed on KTH’s main campus at the PDC Center for High Performance Computing.

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Deutsche Telekom tests solar powered base stations with Ericsson

Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson are testing the use of solar energy for mobile broadband sites. 

The first site is in a German village about 100 miles north of Munich. The Ericsson Power System is handling maximum power point tracking (MPP) as well as the necessary voltage conversion.  The solution also includes integration of the solar solutions into the same management system that also controls the Radio Access Network (RAN).

The tests, carried out in the second half of 2020, showed that solar energy is able to contribute to more than two-thirds of the site's total power during peak hours. Depending on the solar irradiation and technology configuration, larger shares, including up to fully autonomous power supply, where are also observed. This is thanks to the energy-efficient radio equipment.

Leif Heitzer, Senior Vice President Technology Guidance & Economics at Deutsche Telekom, says: “Autonomous power supply for mobile sites not only reduces our CO2 emissions, but also shall help enabling network expansion in locations, where development costs were previously not economical.”

Heather Johnson, Vice President for Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, Ericsson, says: “Ericsson is a driving force for global climate action and this project is another example for how a network-level approach can be deployed sustainably for mobile networks. We welcome this partnership with Deutsche Telekom and we continue to be committed to supporting our customers, manage their network energy consumption and related carbon emissions.”

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Nokia lands 5G contract in Ecuador

Ecuadorian mobile operator, Corporación Nacional de Telecommunicaciones (CNT), has selected Nokia for the extensive network modernization of existing LTE infrastructure as well as the installation of a 5G non standalone (NSA) network. Deployment is underway.

The project encloses the modernization of existing 3G/LTE infrastructure in the provinces of Guayas, Los Rios, Manabi, Bolivar, Morona Santiago and Santa Elena, already implementing over 500 sites for a seamless migration to 5G services. Nokia will also deploy the first 5G non standalone (NSA) sites which will operate in the cities of Guayaquil and Manta. These first 5G sites will enable CNT to plan the services they want to launch with 5G.

The deal comprises Nokia equipment from its comprehensive AirScale portfolio, that will enable CNT to deliver market-leading 5G experiences to subscribers with ultra-low latency, connectivity and capacity as well as reducing complexity and increasing cost efficiencies. Nokia is also supplying its massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna and Micro Remote Radio Head (RRH) solutions to meet the demand for capacity and reliable coverage. CNT also deployed the Nokia AirFrame data center solution to support cloud-based applications necessary for future telco and IT networking.

Martha Moncayo Guerrero, CEO CNT EP, commented: “Being the only public telco company in Ecuador and market leaders in offering hyper-converged services, we are prepared for the deployment of 5G networks to provide a new future for Ecuadorians. With Nokia, we will be able to present the benefits of this fifth generation technology and show their impact on healthcare, education and industry, for the social and productive development of the country.”

Ari Kynäslahti, Head of Technology and Strategy at Nokia Mobile Networks, said: “We are proud to work on this ambitious network evolution plan together with CNT in Ecuador as its long-standing supplier and look forward to delivering compelling 5G experiences to enterprise, consumer and corporate businesses.”

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