picoChip Launches Most Complete Family of WiMAX Reference Designs, Including Industry First for 16e; New Designs are First to Cover Fixed WiMAX (802.16d), Mobile WiMAX (802.16e) and Korean WiBRO
BATH, England—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 12, 2005—
picoChip today announced a family of complete reference
designs that extends its offering to cover both fixed WiMAX
(802.16-2004) and mobile WiMAX (802.16e and WiBRO) for mobile station
(MS) and basestation (BS) designs. picoChip is the only company to
offer a full range of systems in this way: the first to offer
reference designs for 802.16e; the first to support both 802.16d and
802.16e; and the first to deliver the advanced options of the
standard.
These reference designs are complete implementation of a Base
Station or Mobile Station, including PHY, MAC, radio (via partners),
hardware designs and management software. They are participating in
WiMAX Forum Plugfest (interoperability) and CETECOM certification
processes.
The company's existing PC6520 WiMAX reference design for 802.16d
basestations is widely used in the industry. The addition of the new
PC6530 (802.16e BS) and PC6620/6630 (802.16d/802.16e SS or MS)
products build upon its success to make picoChip's WiMAX portfolio the
most complete available. The designs are compatible with all aspects
of the WiMAX specifications and are fully upgradeable, whether for new
versions of the standard or for advanced features such as active
antenna systems (AAS) and multiple input, multiple output (MIMO)
systems. All four software versions run on the picoChip PC102
processor, which is in volume production.
The PC6520 is the industry standard basestation reference design
for 'fixed' WiMAX, with more than 15 major licensees. WiMAX systems
using picoChip are available from Airspan, Intel, Ericsson, Nortel,
Fujitsu, Marconi and a number of other manufacturers. It is being used
in publicly declared deployments in Japan (Yozan), UK (Pipex) and
Italy (Marconi and Italian Ministries).
The new PC6530 is a software-only upgrade to the existing PC6520
reference design for 802.16d basestations that adds the capability to
support the new 802.16e standard - to suit fixed, nomadic and mobile
applications - as well as working with options for Korea (WiBRO) and
China.
The new PC6620 is a ground-breaking new reference design for a
802.16d subscriber stations. The design is particularly useful for
specialist applications that demand better performance than standard
chipsets can offer. As with the PC6520, the new design is
software-upgradeable: completing the range, the PC6630 adds support
for OFMDA and 802.16e for mobile stations.
The systems offer the industry's highest level of performance with
a range of features that include multi-user sub-channelization for
802.16d, multiple subcarrier allocation modes for 802.16e, STC (space
time coding) and antenna diversity, as well as providing an upgrade
path to deliver AAS or MIMO. By combining these with sophisticated
algorithms, picoChip-based systems will deliver the highest
performance of any products on the market. A WiMAX Forum white
paper(1) cites a potential twenty-fold increase in coverage area for a
WiMAX BS, from a typical 2km radius up to 9km, if techniques such as
sub-channelization and STC are exploited.
Caroline Gabriel, Research Director, Rethink Research Associates,
said, "With a system as complex as WiMAX it is essential that
suppliers can deliver not just components but complete, compliant and
tested solutions. The flexibility that picoChip has demonstrated, and
now its ability to provide an end-to-end system, will allow OEMs and
operators to deploy equipment quickly and upgrade as required. This is
especially important given the challenges that the e transition from
802.16d to 802.16e sets for the industry. Even when the standard is
frozen, there will be a long period of integration and test until
things are settled."
Guillaume d'Eyssautier, President and CEO at picoChip, commented,
"With this latest range of reference designs picoChip has confirmed
our position at the forefront of wireless solutions for WiMAX. Our
designs are complete systems that include PHY and MAC,hardware designs
and partners' radio, all certified. They now support all current and
planned future variations of both fixed and mobile WiMAX (and
WiMAX-like) systems globally, and cover both basestation and
subscriber station applications. No other vendor offers either this
level of performance or this ubiquitous coverage across the full range
of silicon, software and systems options."
picoChip provides solutions to the key challenges of cost,
development time and flexibility for next generation of wireless
systems. The company's processor, the PC102, delivers a world-beating
price/performance combination and has achieved design wins with
numerous major companies developing wireless infrastructure. Uniquely,
the company also delivers complete, standard-compliant reference
designs for UMTS (including HSDPA, upgradeable to HSUPA) and
WiMAX/WiBRO (802.16d upgradeable to 802.16e for mobility). The PC102
is also being used by customers to develop other advanced wireless
protocols such as 802.20 and TD-SCDMA.
Editors Note
The IEEE standard 802.16 includes a wide variety of options and
variants, with confusing terminology. The WiMAX implementation
currently defined is for fixed applications and uses the OFDM256
profile of 802.16-2004, commonly referred to as "802.16d". The latest
version of the standard adds capabilities for mobility; this is
usually referred to as "802.16e" after the relevant working group,
although a more correct description would be the OFDMA profile.
Assuming the 802.16 draft is ratified this year these two variants
will then be two incompatible profiles (OFDM and OFDMA) within the
same 802.16-2005 standard, which replaces earlier versions. WiBRO is a
Korean specification which is broadly consistent with the OFDMA
profile, although not identical.
About picoChip
picoChip, located in Bath, England, is dedicated to providing
innovative, flexible wireless solutions to help equipment makers
minimize time-to-market, costs, and system power consumption.
The heart of the company's offering is a scaleable,
multi-processor baseband IC that combines the computational density of
a dedicated ASIC with the programmability of a traditional high end
Digital Signal Processor. This radically reduces both development time
and materials cost and enables the strategic goal of the "Software
Defined Radio". The company has the most comprehensive reference
designs in the industry, with complete, standard-compliant solutions
for both UMTS (including HSDPA) and WiMAX (802.16d upgradeable to
802.16e).
http://www.picochip.com
http://www.wimaxforum.org/news/downloads
Contact:
picoChip Designs Limited
Rupert Baines, +44 (0)1225 469 744
Email Contact
www.picoChip.com
or
Publitek Limited
Oliver Davies, +44 (0)1225 470 000
Email Contact
www.publitek.com
|
Be the first to review this article
