Jacopo Iannacci - Böcker

This book offers a unique bottom-up perspective of a technology for the manufacturing of low-complexity hardware components, which elevates this to a key enabling technology of 6G and future networks. This MEMS-based technology enables the fabrication of highly miniaturized, high-performance, widely tunable/reconfigurable and frequency agile passives, among which are low-loss/high-isolation micro-switches, multi-state RF power attenuators, delay lines and impedance tuners, high-order switching matrices, tunable filters, and more.The ultimate target of the book is increasing awareness of RF-MEMS technology and its possibilities, breaking the usual boundaries of the restricted scientific community dedicated to microsystems, and engaging scientists, developers and enthusiasts involved in other fields of technology. This includes 6G and future networks, as well as the unprecedented bottom-up design and conceptualization approaches that will be crucial to turn such paradigms into reality.The book addresses a broad audience, both technical and non-technical, spread across multiple modern disciplines, encompassing microelectronics, micro-technologies, telecommunications, RF and microwave engineering.

The relentless pace of technological advancement, particularly in telecommunications, is reshaping how we connect and communicate. What once took a decade to standardize now evolves in just a few years, blurring generational divides and delivering seamless transitions to users. Against this backdrop, Considerations on Novel Network Edge Physical Node Architectures explores the complex paradigm of 6G mobile communications—anticipated to emerge around 2030—and casts a longer-term vision toward future networks (FNs).The scientific community has been engaged in 6G research since 2017–2018, defining use cases, key enabling technologies (KETs), and performance indicators (KPIs). Ambitious targets include peak data rates of 1 Tbps, average user rates of 10–100 Gbps, sub-0.1 ms latency, and reliability greater than 10⁻⁸. Application domains span holographic communications, digital twins, multi-sensory extended reality (XR), tactile and haptic interactions, and integrated space–terrestrial networks.While these expectations hold the promise of a more interconnected world, realizing them demands a fundamental shift in approach. The projected density of 10–100 million smart devices per square kilometer in 6G networks cannot be addressed through conventional hardware–software co-design alone. This book proposes new ways of conceiving the physical building blocks of edge intelligence (EI), where intelligence is embedded at the network’s edge.Central to this vision is the use of micro- and nanotechnologies (MEMS/NEMS) to create miniaturized sensors, actuators, and transducers (SATs) that serve as distributed intelligence units. These physical innovations are examined alongside non-physical enablers such as artificial intelligence (AI) and federated learning (FL), illustrating how a holistic integration of technologies can enable practical, scalable applications.By bridging physical and digital innovations, Considerations on Novel Network Edge Physical Node Architectures aims to inject fresh ideas into scientific discourse and provide a foundation for turning the ambitious visions of 6G and future networks into reality. It is an essential resource for researchers, engineers, and industry professionals seeking to shape the next generation of telecommunications infrastructure.

For a decade, with the uptake of 4G, we have become accustomed to the relentless increase in data and services on the move. The deployment of 5G is advancing crucial key performance indicators (KPIs), along with quality of service (QoS). Setting the horizon to 2030 and later, 6G will take the KPIs to numbers 100–1000 times better than 5G. Yet, the actual disruption of 6G and future networks (FN) will take place following other unprecedented paths.Artificial intelligence (AI) will be exploited in a threadlike fashion, at any level of the network physical infrastructure. This will introduce, to date unknown features, like self-sustaining, self-evolution and high-resilience of small portions of the infrastructure, pioneering the concept of a network of networks. Each segment of the infrastructure will bear a high degree of independence, while working at the same time as a whole, in full orchestration with the rest of the network.Given such a scenario, this book claims that the established and currently in use paradigms for the design and development of hardware–software (HW–SW) systems, are not appropriate to address the challenges of 6G and, further ahead, of FN. In response, unprecedented design approaches are suggested, relying on a fresh reinterpretation of the standard concept of HW, with specific attention to the network edge and edge intelligence (EI).This work develops some conceptual tools that may help address the technical challenges resulting from the intricate scenario sketched above. Within the mentioned HW reconceptualization, a pivotal role is forecasted for microtechnologies and nanotechnologies, intended with a broad meaning, which embraces, among others, devices, systems (MEMS/NEMS) and materials.