picoChip, mimoOn Work On Basestation Designs

The PC86xx family of LTE (Long Term Evolution) basestation reference designs cover the full range of eNode Bs from femtocells to multi-sector macrocells. The design, under development jointly by picoChip and mimoOn, will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The system is supported on the same common hardware platforms as picoChip’s WiMAX products. As in WiMAX, the family includes PHY and MAC functions and scales from single-chip femtocell access points (Home eNode B) to sophisticated multi-sector carrier macrocells from 1.25 MHz to 20 MHz. Both TDD and FDD modes are supported. The PHY runs on picoChip PC203 devices and includes an OFDMA downlink and SC-FDMA uplink, with support for up to 4x4 MIMO and for AAS. The MAC, running on a Wintegra WinPath2 device, includes PDCP, RLC, GTP, ROHC, ciphering/deciphering, and RLC, including ARQ. “mimoOn’s expertise enabled the development of this LTE basestation solution. We are proud to be partnering with them,” Guillaume d’Eyssautier, picoChip’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “It is crucial that we continue to provide our customers with the ability to develop systems on the latest wireless standards as they become available, to implement software upgrades as those standards are ratified, and to have the flexibility to improve them going forward.”