reference design

Startup announces 802.11n chip for gigabit speeds

Lynnette Luna — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:28:56 -0400

Start-up Quantenna Communications announced a high-end 802.11n silicon product that uses 4 x 4 MIMO antennas along with beam forming and mesh technologies to enable an aggregate throughput of up to a Gbit/second. The company uses two chips, one each for 2.4 and 5 GHz links.

Quantenna claims it delivers twice the 300 Mbits/s physical layer throughput of existing WiFi chips from established vendors including Atheros and Broadcom. "In addition, we are a factor of four to five times smaller than anything in the market," said Behrooz Rezvani, founder and and chief executive of Quantenna. He said his two-chip module reference design measures about 2.5 x 2 inches to enable plug-in devices such as the Apple Airport Express. The chips use mesh networking based on concepts current under discussion within the 802.11s group, where each node acts as an access point.

For more:
- read EE Times

picoChip unveils LTE femtocell reference designs

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:59:53 -0400

picoChip unveiled its first reference designs for LTE femtocells and picocells, which will enable the company's existing femtocell customers to upgrade to LTE since the new kit can be combined with the company's HSPA products. The designs also run on the same common hardware platform as its WiMAX base-station reference designs. Ubiquisys and ip.access are among picoChip's customers.

For more:
- read this Unstrung article

Related stories:
picoChip, mimoOn develop LTE base station reference design. See this story on picoChip and mimoOn
picoChip receives strategic investment from Samsung. Take a look at this story about Samsung's investment in picoChip

NextWave pushes mobile WiMAX handset reference design

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:59:54 -0500

When it comes to WiMAX devices, most of the emphasis has been on data devices, not handsets. NextWave Wireless is breaking that mold. At the Mobile World Congress the company is showcasing its mobile WiMAX handset reference design that it announced last week. The company is collaborating with Finish firm Elektrobit on a reference design based upon NextWave's WiMAX chipset. Together, the two firms hope that this design will help bring WiMAX handset reference designs to market quicker.

Craig Miller, vice president of marketing at NextWave Mobile Products Semiconductor Unit, said that the company believes a lack of a handset design for WiMAX may prevent operators from transitioning to the technology. "This will help remove that barrier," Miller said.

NextWave is also working with operators Orange and T-Mobile UK on a mobile TV pilot for consumers in London via NextWave's MBMS-based TDtv solution. The six-month pilot, scheduled to commence in the second half of this year, proposes to reduce mobile broadcast costs by means of shared, unpaired 3G spectrum and a standards-based TDtv network--according to NextWave, the consortium model is designed for easy replication in more than 50 additional markets where unpaired 3G spectrum is available. -Sue Marek from Barcelona

For more about NextWave's WiMAX moves:
- see this press release

Related articles:
NextWave, Huawei trial mobile WiMAX Report
NextWave shipping NW1000 Series WiMAX chipset Report

ALSO NOTED: Ericsson plugs latest developments in LTE, HSPA; Motorola to license mobile WiMAX chipset reference design; and muc

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:59:51 -0500

> During the Mobile World Congress this week, Ericsson used a packed press conference to plug its latest developments in LTE and HSPA. Article

> Motorola announced plans to license its mobile WiMAX chipset radio reference design to third parties. Article

> UMA technology company Kineto Wireless announced that it has reached agreement with Qualcomm on a collaboration that will UMA-enable certain Qualcomm 3G UMTS chipsets. Release

> The Chicago Transit Authority gets WiFi. Release

And Finally... Operators catch femto fever. Article

Qualcomm reveals LTE chip plans

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:59:55 -0500

Qualcomm announced plans to ship its first multi-mode Long Term Evolution (LTE) chipsets in the second quarter of 2009, expanding both its device and base-station chipset roadmaps to include LTE and three multi-mode mobile data modem chipsets to enable UMTS and CDMA2000 operators to upgrade to LTE and have backward compatibility to their existing 3G networks.

Qualcomm said the chipsets will support both FDD and TDD duplex modes and will support peak data rates of up to 50 Mbps on the downlink and 25 Mbps on the uplink.

Qualcomm also announced that Hutchison 3G, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telstra have all agreed to trial the chip maker's HSPA+ chipsets later this year. The operators will use Qualcomm's MDM8200 chipset, which includes 64-QAM HSDPA for 21Mbps downlink data rates and 2x2 downlink MIMO for 28 Mbps downlink data rates. The expectation is that the high speed technology will be available as early as 2009.

For more about Qualcomm's LTE and HSPA+ plans:
- check out this article from telecoms.com

Related articles:
picoChip, mimoOn develop LTE base station reference design Report
Ubiquitous networks and the path to 4G Report

picoChip, mimoOn develop LTE base station reference design

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:59:54 -0500

WiMAX semiconductor company picoChip said it is collaborating with mimoOn to deliver the industry's first complete LTE base station reference design. The new PC86xx family of LTE reference designs cover the full range of eNode Bs from femtocells to multi-sector macrocells and is supported on the same common hardware platforms as picoChip's WiMAX products.

The move dramatically decreases the development cost and time to market for LTE, Rupert Baines, picoChip's vice president of marketing, told FierceBroadbandWireless. As a software-defined solution, it is future-proof and can be upgraded as the LTE standard is refined and updated. Finally, the common platform also supports WiMAX, with Wave 2 and MIMO available now, and upgrades for Release 1.x (FDD) and 16m.

"The reuse from WiMAX to LTE is about 70 percent," Baines said. "For our customers, they can reuse virtually everything. They've already designed the hardware and they just need to download a new code. There is a huge commonality."

For more about the partnership:
- read this release

Related articles:
picoChip, Korea Telecom to develop femtocells Report
picoChip teams with Systems4Silicon Release

SPOTLIGHT: EB and NextWave complete WiMAX reference design

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:59:52 -0500

EB and NextWave Wireless have developed a complete reference design based on NextWave's first-generation WiMAX chipset. Release

ALSO NOTED: Wisconsin city to get new WiMAX service; picoChip introduces femtocell reference design for TD-SCDMA; and much more

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:59:51 -0500

> Madison, Wisc., will soon be unwired for a new WiMAX service that will include digital-phone and high-speed Internet access. Article

> U.K. chip company picoChip introduced a femtocell reference design supporting China's TD-SCDMA standard. Article

And Finally... Mobile phones are being blamed for disrupting sleep patterns. Article

TI shows VoCable gateway platform

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 20:01:35 -0400

Texas Instruments is showing a Voice over Cable (VoCable) gateway platform which combines voice, data, and WiFi in a single design. The TNETC731's reference design supports all the PacketCable 1.5 requirements, including primary line VoIP. The design is based on TI's Puma-3 DOCSIS chip, and it integrates a 460x cable modem SoC, voice DSP with the 1350A 802.11b/g silicon, and AP driver. The DOCSIS2.0 compliant cable interface supports transfer rates of up to 38 Mbps downstream and 30 Mbps upstream. Voice is enabled through traditional phones or single/dual mode VoIP handsets.

Fred Zimmerman, executive director CPE VoIP solutions at TI's packet voice and video business unit, told the Madrid meeting of the Broadband World Forum that the gateway is targeted at home networks. He also said that major gateway makers were already designing parts using the kit. He said that the TNETC731 would allow the company TI to extend its lead as the largest supplier of ICs for VoCable applications.

For more on the TNETC371:
- see TI's reference design (pdf)

Redpine shows very low-power 802.11b/g platform

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 20:01:35 -0400

Santa Clara, California-based Redpine Signals has unveiled what must surely be the world's lowest-power licensable 802.11b/g platform. It requires only 35.6mW during VoIP calls. The Pine1-LP WLAN reference design is supported by Linux drivers and targets mobile handsets, PDAs, digital cameras, MP3 players, gaming, and printing platforms. Low power is in: A recent study by ABI Research pointed to low power consumption as key to the success of mobile WiFi chipsets.

Redpine says that a complete SDIO/SPI-based WLAN reference design based on the Pine1-LP platform draws less than 377mW during a 54 Mbps FTP download, and only 35.6mW during VoIP calls. Everything is also very small: the platform's BBP and MAC require only 6 sq. mm of PCB space. The Pine1-LP WLAN Platform includes a BBP, MAC, analog front end, 802.11b/g RF transceiver, and power amplifier, as well as SDIO and SPI host interfaces. The SDIO interface supports full 54 Mbps 802.11g data rates. The MAC supports 802.11i security and 802.11e QoS standards. The MAC is based on a programmable packet engine which off-loads all WLAN packet processing and TCP checksum calculations from the host.

For more on Redpine's small contribution to WiFi:
- see Redpine's website

PLUS: Intel's next-generation architecture will focus on performance per watt, leading to lower power demand by the company's products. Report | Story