Keynotes

Keynote #1 Low-Complexity Hardware Solutions for Baseband Algorithms in Massive MIMO Systems

Mojtaba Mahdavi
Ericsson Research, Sweden

Abstract: As mobile communication systems have evolved through five generations, we have witnessed an exponential increase in data rates, network capacity, and computational demands—trends that are expected to accelerate with the emergence of 6G. This growth is driven by an explosion in connected devices, vast data volumes, and the increasing need for ultra-high throughput, low latency, and enhanced reliability. Moreover, emerging applications such as virtual reality (VR), autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and e-health are imposing even stricter performance requirements for future wireless networks.

Central to the 5G standard is the adoption of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology, which equips base stations with a large number of antennas to serve multiple users simultaneously on the same frequency-time resources. While massive MIMO significantly enhances spectral efficiency and network performance, it also introduces significant computational complexity and memory overhead—primarily due to the need to process and store high-dimensional matrices such as channel state information (CSI). Meeting these challenges is becoming increasingly difficult for conventional digital baseband processors, which face limitations from the slowing of Moore’s Law, constrained memory bandwidth, and energy-intensive data transfers between memory and compute units. These issues hinder the scalability and efficiency of next-generation 6G systems.

This keynote will explore hardware-efficient and low-complexity approaches for implementing baseband signal processing algorithms, focusing on novel computing paradigms that move beyond traditional architectures. In particular, it will highlight the potential of in-memory computing (IMC) as a promising solution to alleviate memory bottlenecks and reduce power consumption. Using practical examples from baseband processing, we will demonstrate how IMC-based architectures can help reshape the future of wireless signal processing and pave the way for realizing the full capabilities of 5G and 6G networks.

Biography: Mojtaba Mahdavi received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2010, and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Information Technology (EIT) from Lund University, Sweden, in 2021. His Ph.D. research focused on baseband processing for 5G and beyond, specifically on algorithms, VLSI architectures, and co-design for next-generation wireless communication systems. In 2020, he was a Visiting Researcher at the Division of Microelectronic Systems Design at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. In 2021, Mojtaba joined Ericsson Research in Lund, Sweden, where he currently works as a Senior Researcher in the Device Platform Research group. He has authored several patent applications, as well as journal and conference papers, with a particular emphasis on the hardware implementation of algorithms and architectures for wireless communication systems.