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The future 6G and tactile internet (TI) paradigms pose challenges and demand for requirements that are far beyond what the 5G—today at its dawn—will ever achieve. The classical approaches in designing devices, systems and infrastructures will not be suitable to build the AI-driven (Artificial Intelligence) 6G network. This work envisages a critical part for MEMS/NEMS technologies in making 6G turn into reality. Such a leading role sits on a reformulation of the common concept of Hardware (HW) triggered by Micro/Nanotechnologies and Materials. To this end, the WEAF Mnecosystem, i.e. the Water, Earth, Air and Fire Micro/Nanotechnologies Ecosystem, is conceived, leveraging the analogy with the four classical elements in nature, and is explained in details in the following pages, along with the discussion of some reference examples. In a nutshell, Earth and Air are the classical concepts of HW and Software (SW), respectively. Water is the novel formulation of the concept of HW, which, like water, is liquid in terms of functional characteristics and gains, at the same time, some features typical of the SW (i.e. Air). Fire, eventually, is the HW devoted to harvest, store and transfer energy, raising its level of abstraction to the concept of heat, which flows from warmer to cooler bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In these days of great attention around the dawn of 5G deployment, the future 6G scenario poses challenges and sketches trends that, according to the opinion of prominent scholar and scientists, fall far beyond the boundaries of the field that 5G will manage to conquer. In a nutshell, the classical approaches in designing devices, systems and infrastructures, which have been seamlessly followed from 1 to 5G, will not be suitable to build the artificial intelligence-driven (AI) 6G network. Self-adapting capabilities, which 6G will push to the edge, urge for a pronounced separation between hardware (HW) and software (SW), this being in full contrast with the consolidated HW-SW co-design philosophy followed up to date. On one side, algorithms will have to be able to estimate the physical resources they can rely on in order to run in an optimal way. On the other hand, the HW will need to gain more symmetry with respect to the SW, in terms of flexibility, functions reconfigurability and self-adaptivity/self-evolution. This work envisions a prime role for micro/nanotechnologies, embodying materials, electronics and micro/nanosystems, in the future scenario of 6G and of the tactile internet. Such a part is expected to be so prominent that a reformulation of the common concept of HW, triggered by micro/nanotechnologies, is suggested in the next pages. To this end, the WEAF Mnecosystem, i.e. the water, earth, air and fire micro/nanotechnologies Ecosystem, is conceived, leveraging the analogy with the four classical elements in nature. In brief, earth and air represent the classical concepts of HW and SW, respectively. Water is the new formulation of HW that, like water, is liquid in terms of functional characteristics. Moreover, it gains some features typical of the SW (i.e. air). Fire, eventually, is the HW devoted to harvest, store and transfer energy, making it available everywhere at the network edge, i.e. when needed, where needed. Concerning the few reference application examples that are going to be listed below, for the purpose of this work they will focus on MEMS technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Packaging of Radio Frequency MicroElectroMechanical-Systems (RF-MEMS) and other passive components is a delicate issue, especially in the riverbed of upcoming application contexts like 5G and the Internet of Things, in which frequencies of operation are getting closer to mm-Waves (millimetre waves). In fact, when dealing with RF signals, the package, beyond protecting encapsulated devices, has also to exert an influence as limited as possible on their electromagnetic characteristics and performance. Therefore, the package design phase has to be performed with particular care. Given such a frame of reference, this study discusses the validation against experimental data of a full-3D methodology for the electromagnetic simulation of a Wafer-Level Packaging solution featuring Through Silicon Vias for the redistribution of electrical signal from the in-package (RF-MEMS) passive devices to the external world. In particular, the results of the full-3D finite element method RF simulations will be compared against experimental S-parameters datasets for a certain variety of Coplanar Waveguide test structures, in a frequency range from 50 MHz up to 30 GHz, showing good accuracy in predicting the behaviour of physical devices. For the sake of brevity, this work will be followed by a standalone second part in which the full-3D model, here validated, will be parameterised and exploited to analyse the influence of the most relevant Degrees of Freedom available in the package design, on the RF characteristics of encapsulated RF-MEMS passive devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, we present and test—to the best of our knowledge, for the first time—, an 8-bit (256-state) reconfigurable RF-MEMS attenuator, from 10 MHz up to 110 GHz, realized in the CMM-FBK technology. Resistive loads, in series and shunt configuration, are selectively inserted on the RF line by means of electrostatic MEMS ohmic switches. The network exhibits several attenuation levels in the range of −10/−45 dB that are rather flat up to 50 GHz, and a certain number of configurations with VSWR smaller than 4 from nearly dc up to 110 GHz, and better than 2 on a frequency span of ~80 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]