Lack of Standard Reference Material (SRM)
Manufacturers often must extrapolate low-frequency data to 5G mmWave frequencies when they accept new material from vendors. This extrapolation leads to disagreements between values specified by the vendor and values measured by manufacturers of the high density interconnect (HDI) boards used in communication technologies. For base station manufacturers, this problem can lead to unpredictable performance of deployed hardware.
A key root cause for these major discrepancies is the lack of traceable reference material for mmWave frequencies. This is represented in the figure below. This gap makes verification of measurement methods and laboratory techniques impossible in an industry setting. Most laboratories rely on internal or external calibration services to ensure that measurement equipment is accurate and to remain compliant with quality management systems such as ISO 9001.
Figure 1: Traceability Challenge for mmWave
As part of the 5G/6G MAESTRO project, work on this page is supported by the Office of Advanced Manufacturing in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under the Federal Award ID Number 70NANB22H050.