Research and Implementation of eCPRI Processing Module for Fronthaul Network on FPGA in 5G – NR gNodeB Base Station

Fronthaul is associated with a new and different type of Radio Access Network architecture consisting of centralized Baseband Units (BBUs) and Remote Radio Units (RRUs) [2] . In order to meet the fifth-generation wireless (5G) challenges of increased traffic and data flows, a new connection protocol for the fronthaul network called Evolved Common Public Radio Interface (eCPRI) has been published. This paper aims to design a system that supports this interface to transmit data from the BBUs to RRUs in 5G Radio Access Network (RAN). By referencing the specification of eCPRI, we develop a hardware system on FPGA to encapsulate and extract required headers for this protocol. The system is compatible with a 10Gb Ethernet subsystem that provides 10Gb Ethernet MAC and a Physical Interface. On top of the system, we develop drivers and applications to configure and run the system.