5G: More Capability. More Complexity

5G is a new communications standard to serve both new and existing markets. As such, 5G comes with high expectations from both mobile operators and consumers. The existing market of mobile phones is no exception. 5G marketing hype is high and pressure to deliver on the billions of dollars spent on 5G spectrum is even higher. Realizing a successful 5G handset deployment comes with significant challenges. We are seeing an unprecedented impact on RF architectures, components, and technologies. Our aim is to first outline some of the complexities derived from the latest 3GPP 5G communications standards. Then, by analyzing macro level handset RF architectures as well as front end module functional blocks, we will describe the resulting RF impacts.