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picoChip Launches Most Complete
Family of WiMAX Reference Designs, Including Industry First for 16e
Other Topics: End-to-End WiMAX
Solution, WiMAX World
picoChip
October 12, 2005
New Designs are First to Cover Fixed WiMAX
(802.16d), Mobile WiMAX (802.16e) and Korean WiBRO
Bath, England -- 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. |
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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). |
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