LTE Baseband, RF, Application Processors-A Heavy Reading Competitve Analysis

8/13/2019 LTE Baseband, RF, Application Processors-A Heavy Reading Competitve Analysis

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HEAVY READING | VOL. 9, NO. 9, OCTOBER 2011 | LTE BASEBAND, RF & APPLICATION PROCESSORS

Heavy Reading Independent quantitative research andcompetitive analysis of next-generation hardware and soft-ware solutions for service providers and vendors

KEY FINDINGS

A ful l ecosystem,including more than50 silicon devices, hasdeveloped specifically

to support LTECarrier commitmentto LTE continues togrow, now up to 166operators across 62countries worldwide

100Mbit/s Cat 3 LTEis now supported bythe majority of LTEsilicon; 150Mbit/s Cat4 is in the pipeline

The first LTE-Advanced featuresare now becomingavailable in silicon

Vendor consolidationis driving a highlycompetitive handsetsilicon market

ARM A9 appli cat ionprocessors are usedby most vendors; the

first A15 cores willarrive by end 2011

Multimode handsetssupporting 2G, 3G,and LTE will be thenext wave of devices,starting in 2012

VOL. 9, NO. 9, OCTOBER 2011

LTE Baseband, RF & Appl icationProcessors: A Heavy ReadingCompetiti ve Analysis

LTE is the fastest-growing wireless network technology with morethan 160 operators across 62 countries committed to LTE. In lessthan two years, more than 20 operators have commerciallylaunched LTE networks in 16 countries. The number of userdevices supporting LTE has grown by more than 60 percent infour months. Mobile carriers have chosen LTE to deliver high-speed data services up to 150Mbit/s initially, then up to 3 Gbit/swithin five years, once LTE-Advanced is fully implemented.

The first LTE devices are in production and second generationsolutions are almost ready. Established mobile chipset vendors

and silicon vendors are pushing to deliver integrated solutions formultimode handset devices and micro, pico, and femto basestations. The established vendors are being challenges by agroup of Tier 2 vendors with established credibility in either theHSPA or WiMax markets that have developed LTE siliconsolutions with market-leading features.

This report delivers a complete competitive analysis of LTEsilicon solutions from 29 vendors, covering more than 70 differentproducts and product families. The report offers detailed competi-tive analysis on LTE baseband, RF and application processorsfor user devices and base stations, covering key product fea-

tures, as well as power, price, and availability.AUTHOR: SIMON STANLEY, ANALYST AT LARGE, HEAVY READING

USE OF THIS PDF FILE IS GOVERNED BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS STATED IN THE

SUBSCRIBER LICENSE AGREEMENT INCLUDED IN THIS FILE. ANY VIOLATION OF THETERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION OF THIS FILETO THIRD PARTIES,IS CONSIDERED A BREACH OF COPYRIGHT.HEAVY READING WILLPURSUE SUCH BREACHES TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW . SUCH ACTS AREPUNISHABLE IN COURT BY FINE S OF UP TO $100,000FOR EACH INFRINGEMENT.


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HEAVY READING | VOL. 9, NO. 9, OCTOBER 2011 | LTE BASEBAND, RF & APPLICATION PROCESSORS 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION & KEY FINDINGS .................................................................................. 41.1 Key Findings ....................................................................................................................... 51.2 Report Scope & Structure ................................................................................................... 6II. LTE MARKETS & TECHNOLOGY .................................................................................... 72.1 Market Overview ................................................................................................................. 72.2 LTE Technology Primer ...................................................................................................... 82.3 LTE-Advanced .................................................................................................................. 112.4 LTE IP Solutions ............................................................................................................... 11III. BASE STATION DEVICES & SOLUTIONS .................................................................... 133.1 LTE Base Station PHY Devices ....................................................................................... 133.2 LTE Base Station PHY Devices ....................................................................................... 143.3 LTE Base Station MAC & Control Devices ....................................................................... 153.4 Integrated LTE Base Station Devices .............................................................................. 16IV. BASE STATION SILICON VENDORS ............................................................................ 204.1 Cavium Inc. ....................................................................................................................... 204.2 DesignArt Networks Ltd. ................................................................................................... 214.3 Freescale Semiconductor Inc. .......................................................................................... 224.4 LSI Corp. ........................................................................................................................... 234.5 Mindspeed Technologies Inc. ........................................................................................... 244.6 NetLogic Microsystems Inc. .............................................................................................. 244.7 Octasic Inc. ....................................................................................................................... 254.8 Picochip Ltd. ..................................................................................................................... 264.9 PMC-Sierra Inc. ................................................................................................................ 264.10 Texas Instruments Inc. ..................................................................................................... 27V. HANDSET & CPE DEVICES ........................................................................................... 285.1 LTE CPE & Handset Baseband Devices .......................................................................... 285.2 LTE Ready Application Processors .................................................................................. 30VI. HANDSET & CPE SILICON VENDORS .......................................................................... 336.1 Altair Semiconductor Ltd. ................................................................................................. 336.2 Broadcom Corp. ............................................................................................................... 346.3 Cavium Inc. ....................................................................................................................... 346.4 GCT Semiconductor Inc. .................................................................................................. 346.5 Innofidei Inc. ..................................................................................................................... 356.6 Intel Corp. ......................................................................................................................... 356.7 Marvell Technology Group Ltd. ........................................................................................ 356.7 Nvidia Inc. ......................................................................................................................... 356.8 Qualcomm Inc................................................................................................................... 366.9 Renesas Mobile ................................................................................................................ 366.10 Sequans Communications ................................................................................................ 366.11 ST-Ericsson ...................................................................................................................... 37


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6.12 Texas Instruments Inc. ..................................................................................................... 37VII. RF CHIPS & VENDORS .................................................................................................. 387.1 Analog Devices Inc. .......................................................................................................... 417.2 Fujitsu Microelectronics America Inc. ............................................................................... 417.3 Genasic Design Systems Ltd. .......................................................................................... 417.4 Lime Microsystems Ltd. .................................................................................................... 417.5 Maxim Integrated Products Inc. ........................................................................................ 427.6 Semtech Corp. .................................................................................................................. 42APPENDIX A: ABOUT THE AUTHOR ......................................................................................... 43APPENDIX B: LEGAL DISCLAIMER ........................................................................................... 44

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Worldwide LTE Subscribers ........................................................................................... 7Figure 2.2: 3GPP Release 8 User Equipment Categories ............................................................... 9Figure 2.3: LTE Radio Interface Architecture ................................................................................... 9Figure 2.4: System Architecture Evolution (SAE) ........................................................................... 10Figure 2.5: 3G/LTE System Architecture ........................................................................................ 11Figure 3.1: LTE Base Stations ........................................................................................................ 13Figure 3.2: eNodeB ........................................................................................................................ 13Figure 3.3: LTE PHY Device Summary .......................................................................................... 14Figure 3.4: LTE PHY Device Features ........................................................................................... 15Figure 3.5: LTE MAC & Control Devices ........................................................................................ 16Figure 3.6: Integrated LTE Base Stations Device Summary .......................................................... 16Figure 3.7: Integrated LTE Device Features .................................................................................. 18Figure 4.1: Base Station Silicon Vendors ....................................................................................... 20Figure 4.2: Octeon II CN66XX Block Diagram ............................................................................... 21Figure 4.3: DesignArt DAN3000 Family ......................................................................................... 22Figure 4.4: LSI ACP34xx Axxia Multicore Processor ..................................................................... 23Figure 4.5: NetLogic XLP Multicore Processor .............................................................................. 24Figure 4.6: Octasic OCT2224W Block Diagram ............................................................................. 25Figure 4.7: Picochip PC500 Block Diagram ................................................................................... 26Figure 5.1: LTE Subscriber Unit ..................................................................................................... 28Figure 5.2: LTE CPE & Handset Device Summary ........................................................................ 29Figure 5.3: LTE CPE & Handset Device Features ......................................................................... 30Figure 5.4: LTE Ready Application Processor Summary ............................................................... 31Figure 5.5: LTE Ready Application Processor Features ................................................................ 32Figure 6.1: Handset/CPE Silicon Vendors ..................................................................................... 33

Figure 7.1: LTE RF Device Applications ........................................................................................ 38Figure 7.2: LTE RF Device Summary ............................................................................................ 39Figure 7.3: LTE RF Device Details ................................................................................................. 40


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I. Introduction & Key FindingsLong Term Evolution (LTE) deployments are growing quickly, with 166 carriers in 62 countriesnow committed to using it. LTE provides the reduced latency, increased peak bandwidth andgreater network capacity required for the advanced voice, data and video applications madepossible by the latest smartphones. HD video is only the latest in a stream of new applications

that is stretching 3G networks to the breaking point.

Mobile carriers need LTE to deliver high-quality services to smartphone users. LTE is the leading4G wireless network and is backward compatible with existing solutions. LTE and LTE-Advancedwill meet the long-term needs of carriers and their customers for high-speed data traffic support-ing Internet browsing, voice and video.

Semiconductor components are key to the successful rollout of LTE networks around the world.As LTE develops and LTE-Advanced is introduced, there is pressure on semiconductor vendorsto introduce devices supporting additional frequency bands and a complex mix of networks,bandwidths and performance. To meet these challenges, semiconductor vendors must developflexible and highly integrated devices that meet the performance criteria of carriers and delivercost-effective, power-efficient solutions.

The LTE semiconductor market is very competitive, with multiple vendors developing applicationprocessors, baseband and radio frequency (RF) devices for both base stations and user equip-ment. With LTE, we are seeing components developed by existing application processor, mobilebaseband and RF market leaders; startups targeting the LTE market; and well-establishedcompanies shifting from WiMax to LTE. There have also been several high-profile acquisitionsthat have brought application processor and baseband developers into one company, includingST-Ericsson, Renasas, Intel and Nvidia.

LTE Baseband, RF & Application Processors: A Heavy Reading Competitive Analysis identifies and analyzes the full spectrum of vendors developing LTE components for both basestations and user devices. The report includes not only granular information on the componentsand systems themselves of interest to system OEMs, smartphone developers and serviceproviders but also insights into how the overall market and ecosystem is developing of

interest to a wide audience, including investors.

The report evaluates and analyzes the products and strategies of 29 leading vendors in thisrapidly growing market, including more than 70 baseband, RF and application processors fromthese companies. The vendors covered in this report are:

Altair Semiconductor Ltd.

Altera Corp. (Nasdaq: ALTR)

Analog Devices Inc. (NYSE: ADI)

Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM)

Cavium Inc. (Nasdaq: CAVM)

DesignArt Networks Ltd.

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. (NYSE: FSL)

Fujitsu Microelectronics America Inc., a subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd. (TSE: 6702; PinkSheets: FJTSY)

GCT Semiconductor Inc.

Genasic Design Systems Ltd.


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Innofidei Inc.

Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC)

Lime Microsystems Ltd.

LSI Corp. (NYSE: LSI)

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (Nasdaq: MRVL) Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (Nasdaq: MXIM)

Mindspeed Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: MSPD)

NetLogic Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: NETL)

Nvidia Inc. (Nasdaq: NVDA)

Octasic Inc.

Picochip Ltd.

PMC-Sierra Inc. (Nasdaq: PMCS)

Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM)

Renesas Mobile, a subsidiary of Renesas Electronics Corp. (TSE: 6723)

Semtech Corp. (Nasdaq: SMTC)

Sequans Communications

ST-Ericsson, a joint venture of STMicroelectronics NV (NYSE: STM) and Ericsson AB(Nasdaq: ERIC)

Tensilica Inc.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN)

Xilinx Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX)

1.1 Key Findings

Key findings of this report include the following:

A fu ll LTE ecosystem, includ ing more than 50 si li con dev ices, has developed speci fi cal lyto support LTE. Of the more than 70 silicon devices covered in this report, more than 50 havebeen designed specifically for LTE or have had features added to support LTE.

Carrier commitment to LTE continues to grow, now including 166 operators across 62countries. A total of 24 operators have launched commercial LTE networks in 16 countries,making LTE the fastest-growing wireless technology in the world.

The majority of LTE silicon supports 100Mbit/s Cat 3 LTE. Most of the silicon solutions

designed for both user devices and LTE base stations support 100Mbit/s Cat 3 LTE. A smallnumber of older devices are limited to 50MHz Cat 2 LTE, and a few of the latest devices willsupport 150MHz Cat 4.

The first LTE-Advanced features are becoming available in silicon. The first silicon deviceswith features such as carrier aggregation and multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) to support LTE-Advanced are sampling to system developers.


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Vendor consolidation is driving a very competitive handset silicon market. Due to somehigh-profile acquisitions, ST-Ericsson, Renasas, Intel and Nvidia all now have both applicationprocessors and LTE baseband solutions under one roof.

ARM A9 applicat ion processors are used by most vendors ; the fi rs t A15 cores wi ll arr iveby the end of 2011. ARM Cortex A9 processor cores are used by Nvidia, Renesas, ST-Ericssonand Texas Instruments. Intel has the Atom processor core, and Qualcomm has developed theScorpion and Krait processor cores.

Multimode handsets supporting 2G/3G/LTE will be the next wave, starting in 2012. All LTE-enabled handsets today are dual-band designs supporting LTE and 3G. Using the silicon devicesalready developed, the next generation of handsets will be multiband, supporting 2G/3G andpossibly multiple LTE bands.

Integrated silicon solutions are available for small-cell base stations. Small-cell base stationsmust be very low-cost and low-power. The latest introductions from several vendors include highlyintegrated devices for picocells and femtocells that enable very low-power and low-cost solutions.

1.2 Report Scope & Structure

This report is based on interviews conducted with a wide range of LTE silicon vendors in the fourmonths leading up to July 2011, along with product and volume information supplied by vendors.The tables presented in the report are based on product documentation and supplemental datafrom our interviews and email conversations. All of the data in product tables has been providedto vendors for confirmation, feedback and updating ahead of publication. In total, the reportcontains detailed information and analysis on more than 70 products from 29 different vendors.

LTE Baseband, RF & Application Processors: A Heavy Reading Competitive Analysis isstructured as follows:

Section IIexamines the dynamics of the LTE market, provides an overview of LTE technology,introduces the plans for LTE-Advanced and covers three vendors that will provide intellectualproperty to support the development of LTE devices.

Section IIIfocuses on base station solutions. This section covers 22 devices, including LTE PHYdevices, LTE MAC and control devices and integrated LTE base station devices.

Section IVpresents detailed product and strategy analysis for 10 vendors that provide LTE PHYdevices, LTE MAC and control devices and/or integrated LTE base station devices.

Section V analyzes 31 baseband devices and application processors for LTE user devices,including handsets, tablets and USB dongles.

Section VIpresents detailed product and strategy analysis for 13 vendors that supply basebanddevices and application processors for LTE user devices.

Section VIIanalyzes 18 RF devices available for LTE and presents detailed product and strategyanalysis for six vendors that provide RF devices and are not covered elsewhere.


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II. LTE Markets & Technology

2.1 Market Overview

The dramatic increase in the use of smartphones by both businesses and consumers hasdramatically increased user expectations and driven exponential mobile data traffic growth. To

meet these expectations, carriers are investing in mobile broadband service delivery. However,average revenue per mobile user is growing more slowly than data per user, and this is puttingcarrier profitability under pressure. LTE is a significant step forward for wireless carriers, reducingthe cost per user and delivering peak rates of 100 Mbit/s and above.

LTE was developed within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as a 4G successor toWCDMA/UMTS. WCDMA/UMTS, including High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and CDMA2000,represent the mainstream 3G mobile technologies supporting voice and increasing data band-width. Since Qualcomm stopped developing Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) in November 2008,LTE has also been adopted as the successor to CDMA2000. LTE will meet the InternationalTelecommunication Union (ITU) requirements for 4G networks (IMT-Advanced) with the introduc-tion of LTE-Advanced, currently being developed within 3GPP.

LTE uses similar techniques to WiMax, which has been in development for eight years. This hasaccelerated the introduction of LTE equipment and handsets. LTE is architecturally backwardcompatible with conventional mobile solutions, and although we are seeing some WiMax deploy-ments, most wireless carriers are committing to LTE for their long-term mobile network evolution.Beyond that, LTE-Advanced promises data rates up to 3 Gbit/s, and we expect LTE/LTE-Advanced to be the leading 4G wireless technology. Ericsson has demonstrating LTE-Advanced,achieving speeds 10 times faster than current LTE systems.

Carriers' commitment to LTE continues to grow. According to a recent report from the Globalmobile Suppliers Association (GSA), there are now 166 operators across 62 countries committedto LTE. LTE is now the world's fastest-growing mobile networking technology, as a total of 24operators have commercially launched LTE networks in 16 countries, according to the GSA. Afterearly enthusiasm in Asia and Europe, the U.S. is now taking the lead on LTE, with In-Statforecasting that 25 percent of all LTE base stations deployed from 2011-2014 will be in the U.S.

Figure 2.1: Worldw ide LTE Subscribers

Source: AT&T


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As Figure 2.1shows, LTE subscriber numbers are expected to grow rapidly from 2013 onward.The LTE infrastructure market is expected to reach $11.4 billion by 2014 (Infonetics Research,April 2010). Analysts expect 136 million LTE subscribers (Pyramid Research, May 2009) paying$70 billion in service revenue (Juniper Research) an average of $42 per subscriber per month.

LTE will be available on more frequency bands than any previous wireless service. LTE will beavailable with frequency-division duplexing (FDD), where transmit and receive are on differentbands; and time-division duplexing (TDD), where transmit and receive share the same frequency,but are separated in time. LTE also supports half-duplex FDD (HFDD), where the transmissionsto and from a specific terminal are on different bands and separated by time.

Key FDD LTE bands will initially be 700MHz in the U.S. and 2.6GHz in Europe. Some capacitywill be available in the 900MHz band as traffic is shifted from GSM, and in the 800MHz band asdigital spectrum is released by the shift from analog to digital TV. Other FDD LTE bands availableinclude 850MHz and 950MHz. China Mobile is planning to use the 2.3GHz TDD LTE band, and2.6GHz may be used as some spectrum originally allocated to WiMax becomes available. LTE-Advanced will support additional bands.

The first fully commercial LTE network was launched by TeliaSonera in Sweden in December2009. Today TeliaSonera provides coverage for more than 30 cities in Sweden, Norway and

Denmark, delivering data rates up to 100 Mbit/s. Other operators deploying commercial mobilebroadband networks based on LTE include MetroPCS, Verizon and AT&T in North America,Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom in Europe, and NTT Docomo in Japan. A number of WiMaxoperators are also moving toward LTE. These include Yota in Russia and Clearwire in NorthAmerica, which is investigating the introduction of an LTE-Advanced network.

Initial networks are using single-band USB dongles for subscriber terminals and dual-mode LTEhandsets. Multiband LTE dongles and multimode handsets are in development covering GSM,WCDMA/UMTS and LTE. General availability of multiprotocol handsets will be from 2012.According to a recent report from the GSA, 45 manufacturers had announced 161 LTE-enableduser devices by July 2011 a 64 percent increase since March 2011.

2.2 LTE Technology PrimerKey objectives for LTE are higher performance, with 100 Mbit/s peak downlink and 50 Mbit/suplink initially (Cat 3), and at least 1 Gbit/s downstream for LTE-Advanced. Faster cell edgeperformance, reduced latency and scalable channel bandwidths of 20 MHz or more will delivermuch higher performance and better user experience. LTE is backward compatible and supportshandover and roaming to existing mobile networks including 3G and 2G (GSM/EDGE).

LTE provides two to five times greater spectral efficiency than existing advanced 3G networks.With simple network architecture, the reuse of existing cell sites and multivendor sourcing, LTEwill deliver significantly lower cost per bit. LTE has a very wide application with support for bothTDD and FDD spectrum modes, mobility up to 350 km per hour and connectivity for a large rangemodem devices, including phones, PCs and cameras.

The LTE downlink transmission scheme is based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing(OFDM), like WiMax. Carrier bandwidths are flexible. The LTE uplink is a single carrier transmis-sion based on discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-spread OFDM (DFTS-OFDM). This is the mostsignificant difference between implementing mobile WiMax and LTE with a programmablebaseband solution.

3GPP Release 8, frozen in December 2008, specified all the key parameters for LTE. The userequipment categories for 3GPP Release 8 are shown in Figure 2.2. 3GPP Release 9, completedat the end of 2009, adds enhancements to LTE particularly for home base stations (femtocells).


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Figure 2.2: 3GPP Release 8 User Equipment Categories

CATEGORY 1 2 3 4 5

Peak DownlinkSpeed

10 Mbit/s 50 Mbit/s 100 Mbit/s 150 Mbit/s 300 Mbit/s

Peak Uplink

Speed 5 Mbit/s 25 Mbit/s 50 Mbit/s 50 Mbit/s 75 Mbit/s

RF Bandwidth 20 MHz

DownlinkModulation

QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM

UplinkModulation

QPSK, 16QAMQPSK, 16QAM,

64QAM

2 Rx Diversity Assumed in performance requirements

2x2 MIMO Not supported Mandatory

4x4 MIMO Not supported Mandatory

Source: 3GPP

Maximum network capacity is determined by the channel bandwidth and coding. The channelbandwidth can be 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz and is fixed for a particular network. The codingcan be QPSK, 16QAM, or 64QAM and may switch dynamically depending on link performance,with 64QAM providing the highest performance.

LTE link performance is significantly enhanced with the use of multiple-input/multiple output(MIMO) antennas. The base implementation for LTE is a 1x2 MIMO configuration, with a singletransmitter and two receivers. The two receiver streams are combined, reducing the requirementfor error correction and retransmission. Additional transmit antennas are used for transmitdiversity and beam-forming. 2x2 MIMO configurations have two receivers and two transmitters.Initial LTE implementations specifying Cat 3 equipment with 2x2 MIMO will reach 100 Mbit/s forthe downlink and 50 Mbit/s for the uplink under ideal conditions.

The LTE base station, called the eNodeB, integrates the function of both the 3G base station(NodeB) and the 3G distributed radio network controller (RNC). The eNodeB radio interfacearchitecture shown in Figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3: LTE Radio Interface Archi tecture

Source: Earlswood Marketing


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The LTE radio interface architecture consists of five main layers. The Radio Resource Control(RRC) handles admission control and hand over. The Packet and Data Convergence Protocol(PDCP) handles header compression, ciphering and integrity protection. The Radio Link Control(RLC) handles segmentation and retransmission, as well as in-sequence delivery. The MediaAccess Control (MAC) handles link scheduling and hybrid acknowledge request, and the PhysicalLayer (PHY) handles the coding, APM modulation and multi-antenna mapping.

LTE is the first wireless network technology that does not include circuit-switched voice. CurrentLTE network deployments use legacy fallback to a circuit-switched 2G/3G connection to supportvoice calls. This approach interrupts the LTE data session to make or receive voice calls, and callsetup times can be as much as six seconds. Voice can also be supported using voice over IP(VoIP) with Skype, or a similar Internet VoIP service. Neither of these approaches is viewed bycarriers as a long-term solution, as one requires the circuit-switched infrastructure to remain andthe other gives control of voice to a third-party provider.

The GSM Association (GSMA) has adopted Voice over LTE (VoLTE) as the standardized methodfor delivering voice services over LTE. VoLTE requires carriers to implement IP MultimediaSubsystem (IMS) infrastructure. IMS has already been deployed by some mobile carriers;however, the benefits of IMS including the GSMA-defined Rich Communications Suite (RCS)services have not been enough to persuade most carriers to deploy it. The combination of LTE,

VoLTE and IMS is expected to prove attractive to most carriers over time. Other solutions fordelivering voice services over LTE without using IMS, such as the VoLGA (VoLTE via GenericAccess) initiative, are no longer seeing much interest.

To meet the requirement for lower capex and opex and to support the high bandwidth require-ments for LTE, 3GPP has developed a new network architecture, System Architecture Evolution(SAE), shown in Figure 2.4. The SAE consists of the radio access network (RAN) and EvolvedPacket Core (EPC). The EPC will connect with an IMS network or directly to the Internet. TheMobility Management Entity (MME) is the control plane node for the EPC. The EPC user planeconsists of the serving gateway connecting the EPC to the LTE RAN and the packet data networkgateway connecting the EPC to the Internet using the SGI interface. User data is stored in theHome Subscriber Server (HSS), which may be shared with the IMS network.

Figure 2.4: System Archi tecture Evolut ion (SAE)


The EPC can also support a combined 3G/LTE network with interfaces to the SGSN and RNC forthe HSPA network (see Figure 2.5). A combined HLR/HSS is used by the EPC for both LTE andthe GSM/WCDMA network.


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Figure 2.5: 3G/LTE System Arch itecture


2.3 LTE-Advanced

LTE-Advanced, which will deliver up to 3 Gbit/s, is nearing completion. The features of LTE-Advanced include:

Carrier aggregation: The use of multiple carrier bands, either contiguous or non-contiguous, giving carrier bandwidths up to 100MHz.

Improved spectral efficiency

Higher-order MIMO: Extended utilization of antennas, including multi-user MIMO (MU-

MIMO) up to 8x8 downlink and 4x4 uplink

Multi-hop transmission (relay)

Inter-cell interference management, multi-cell cooperation and self-organizing network(SON)

New user equipment categories as shown below:

o Cat 6 300 Mbit/s downlink, 50 Mbit/s uplink

o Cat 7 300 Mbit/s downlink, 100 Mbit/s uplink

o Cat 8 3 Gbit/s downlink, 1.5 Gbit/s uplink

Basic LTE-Advanced functionality is covered by 3GPP Release 10, which was mostly frozen in

June 2011. Further enhancements, including multi-cell cooperation (CoMP), are covered byRelease 11, which is expected to be frozen by the end of 2011. In November 2010, LTE-Advanced was ratified as an IMT-Advanced technology by the ITU.

2.4 LTE IP Solutions

LTE intellectual property (IP) has been important in the development of semiconductor devices.Much of this IP was initially developed for WiMax and has been adapted to LTE.


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There are several companies that provide LTE IP, including:

Altera Corp.: Altera is a leading FPGA vendor. The company has developed IP blocksfor a range of WiMax- and LTE-related functions, including Turbo encoder/decoder and ascalable OFDMA engine.

Tensili ca Inc.: Tensilica is a semiconductor IP company that provides customizable data

plane processors. In February 2010, the company released details of the Atlas LTE ref-erence architecture using Tensilica processor cores that will support Cat 4 LTE handsets.The company claims that eight of the top 15 LTE chipset manufacturers are working withits digital signal processing (DSP) core for their LTE designs. Tensilica processor coresare also used by DesignArt for its base station devices (see Section 4.2).

Xilinx Inc.:Xilinx, the leading FPGA vendor, provides IP and reference design for net-working applications. The company has developed IP blocks for a range of LTE-relatedfunctions, including MIMO encoder/decoder, downlink channel encoder and uplink channeldecoder. Xilinx FPGAs are used in a growing number of LTE base station implementations.


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III. Base Station Devices & Solutions

3.1 LTE Base Station PHY Devices

LTE networks are being built using a heterogeneous mix of small and large base stations(eNodeBs), as shown in Figure 3.1. The first LTE networks are using micro base stations that

support up to 600 users. Macro base stations with more than 1,000 users will be needed for somehigh-density, urban locations, but micro base stations will be the most common. A recent devel-opment is the picocell, supporting up to 128 users, and femtocells for fewer than 32 users. Picobase stations can be located indoors or outdoors on a light pole to provide a local hotspot.Enterprise femtocells and home femtocells provide local connectivity within buildings.

Figure 3.1: LTE Base Stations

BASE STATION TYPE LOCATION COVERAGE USERS

Home Femto Home Home 4-8

Enterprise Femto Enterprise Office buildings 8-32

Pico Indoor Hotspot 32-128

Pico Street (Light Pole) Immediate area 32-128

Micro Street, cabinet or light pole Suburban or Rural Area (40km) 400-600

Macro Street cabinet or central office High-Density Urban Areas >1,000

Source: Heavy Reading

LTE components must be very flexible, handling multiple standards, frequency bands andchannel bandwidths. Baseband devices should therefore be software-programmable, handlinginvolved specifications and channel allocations, as well as scalable and very low-latency.

Figure 3.2 shows the devices in a typical eNodeB. On the left is the network interface; in themiddle is the baseband, including MAC and PHY devices; and on the right is the RF front end.

Figure 3.2: eNodeB


The RF front end has integrated power amplifiers, filtering and control for transmit and receive. Tosupport 2x2 MIMO, the RF front end should integrate at least two transmit and receive and signalpaths. The RF front end may have an analog interface to the baseband device or integrate the


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digital to analog converters (analog front end [AFE]) and have a digital interface to the basebanddevice. The baseband consists of an OFDM-based PHY and MAC function. The network inter-face handles networking functions including address translation, packet processing, trafficmanagement and interfaces to the backhaul network. The control processor provides system,network management, and handles exception and control plane functions.

Many LTE base stations also support 2G and 3G legacy networks, including GSM, CDMA andHSPA+. This multimode requirement significantly increases the work required to qualify newsystems and gives existing 2G and 3G wireless baseband component suppliers a significantadvantage.

Larger LTE base stations (macro, micro) use separate devices for PHY, MAC and RF front end.Smaller pico base stations can be implemented using integrated devices with DSP, packetprocessing, network input/output (I/O) and control processor. Future devices may also integratethe RF front end.

The rest of this section is split into three subsections covering LTE base station PHY devices,LTE base station MAC devices and integrated devices for LTE base stations.

3.2 LTE Base Station PHY DevicesFigures 3.3 is a summary of the leading PHY devices for LTE. These include devices fromDesignArt and Picochip that have been developed for this application, along with general-purposedevices from Freescale and Texas Instruments that have been enhanced to support 4G wirelessnetworks including LTE. Throughput ranges from 100 Mbit/s downstream and 50 Mbit/s upstream(LTE Cat 3) to 300 Mbit/s downstream and 150 Mbit/s upstream (LTE-Advanced Cat 7). TheDesignArt DAN3100 and Texas Instruments TCI6618 will also support the 40MHz channelbandwidth required for LTE-Advanced.

Figure 3.3: LTE PHY Device Summary

COMPANY/DEVICE

THROUGH-

PUT

(DOWN/UP)

CHANNEL

BANDWIDTHSNETWORKS PROCESS POWER

AVAIL-ABIL ITY

DesignArtDAN3100

N/A3.5, 5, 7, 10,20, 40MHz

GSM, [W]CDMA, WiMax,LTE, LTE-Advanced

40nm 5W max Sampling

FreescaleMSC8156/4

N/D N/D LTE, HSPA+ and WiMax 45nm N/D Production

FreescaleMSC8157

N/D N/DLTE, HSPA+, LTE-

Advanced and WiMax45nm N/D Sampling

PicochipPC203

100 Mbit/s/50 Mbit/s

Up to 10MHz

HSDPA, HSUPA,CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA,

WiFi, GSM, GPRS,EDGE, LTE, EGPRS

90nm N/D Production

PicochipPC500

150 Mbit/s/75 Mbit/s Up to 20MHz

HSPA/LTE/ LTE-Advanced 90nm N/D Sampling

TexasInstruments

TCI6616


Up to 20MHzLTE, WCDMA/HSPA+,

GSM/EDGE, TD-SCDMA,WiMax, CDMA2000

40nm N/D Production

TexasInstruments

TCI6618


Up to 40MHzLTE, WCDMA/HSPA+,

GSM/EDGE, TD-SCDMA,WiMax, CDMA2000

40nm N/D Production



15/44


Typical power consumption is 7.5W to 10W for a three-sector implementation. These programm-able devices can also be used to support WiMax, WCDMA, CDMA2000, GPRS, EDGE and WiFi,as well as LTE. The DesignArt DAN3100 is designed for use on a remote radio head and maxi-mum power is 5W. Most devices use 40nm or 45nm semiconductor technology. The Picochipdevices use 90nm.

Figure 3.4 shows more detail on LTE PHY devices. All these devices implement the LTE PHY inprogrammable DSP cores. The Freescale and Texas Instruments devices are enhanced versionsof general-purpose DSP processors. Picochip use an array of processors optimized for DSPprocessing (picoArray), and DesignArt has licensed reduced instruction set computing (RISC)and DSP cores from Tensilica.

Most devices will support 2x2 MIMO and both TDD and FDD. The Texas Instruments TCI6618will support 4x4 MIMO. All the devices integrate a security acceleration engine and significantinternal memory. The network interfaces to the MAC are typically Gigabit Ethernet (GE), and hostinterfaces are PCI Express (PCIe), Serial RapidIO (SRIO) or GE. All the devices provide a digitalinterface to the RF front end. The most common interface is Common Public Radio Interface(CPRI), but other interfaces are supported, including FRMI, Open Base Station ArchitectureInitiative (OBSAI) and SRIO.

Figure 3.4: LTE PHY Device Features

COMPANY/DEVICE

PHY MIMOSEC-

TORS

NETWORK&HOST

INTERFACE

RF

INTER-

FACE

INTER-

NAL

MEMORY

DesignArtDAN3100

6 x Tensilica RISC cores,6 x Tensilica DSP cores

N/A 162 x GE;

2 x SRIO

4 x DFE;8 x PRI;2 x SRIO

3.5 MB

FreescaleMSC8156/4

6 x SC3850 StarCore DSP,MAPLE-B accelerator

N/D N/D2 x GE, PCIex4, 2xSRIOx4

None 4MB

FreescaleMSC8157

6 x SC3850 StarCore DSP,MAPLE-B2 accelerator

N/D N/D2 x GE,

PCIe2.1 x4,

2xSRIOx4@5G

6x CPRI4.1@6G

6MB

PicochipPC203

picoArray2x2 (extenda-ble to more)

Scal-able

FE and MII orlocal bus

3xADI,FRMI

N/D

PicochipPC500

picoArray2x2 (extenda-ble to more)

Scal-able

FE and MII orlocal bus

3xADI,FRMI

N/D

TexasInstruments

TCI6616

4xC66x DSP coresplus coprocessors

2x2/1x2(FDD); 2x8/8x2 (TDD)

1 SRIO, 2xGECPRI/OBSAI

6MB

TexasInstruments

TCI6618


4x4/2x2(FDD); 2x8/8x2 (TDD)

2 SRIO, 2xGECPRI/OBSAI

6MB

One or more C66x DSP cores may be shared between PHY and MAC


3.3 LTE Base Station MAC & Control Devices

This section covers devices that can be used as LTE base station MAC and control devices. Theyall integrate a control processor with hardware acceleration for networking functions. Thesedevices can be used to implement the network interface including service applications andoperations, administration and maintenance (OAM), control processing and system management,and the LTE MAC layer.


16/44


Figure 3.5shows a number of devices that are suitable for LTE base station MAC and controlfunctions. All of the companies in this table supply a range of multicore processors that includedevices with both higher and lower performance and integration than those shown in this table.For more information on multicore devices, see the vendor-specific information in Section IV,orthe reportMulticore Processors for Network Systems: A Heavy ReadingCompetitive Analysis.

All these devices support a wide range of network and host interfaces, including GE, SRIO andPCIe. The hardware acceleration is implemented in either hardcoded blocks or programmableengines, such as the PMC-Sierra SMT engines. The processor core count ranges from two e500vcores in the Freescale QorIQ P2020 to 10 cnMIPS64 v2 cores in the Cavium Octeon II CN6645.The Cavium CN6645 and NetLogic XLP316L devices support IEEE 1588v2 hardware timestamping for Ethernet backhaul timing.

Figure 3.5: LTE MAC & Cont rol Devices

COMPANY/DEVICE

CONTROL &MACETHERNET

INTERFACE

OTHER HOST/NETWORK

INTERFACE

INTER-

NAL

MEMORY

PRO-CESS

POWERAVAIL-ABIL ITY

CaviumOcteon IICN6645

10x cnMIPS64 v2

cores

2x10GE or

8xGE

2x(PCIex4

or SRIOx42MB 65nm 7W

Produc-

tion

FreescaleQorIQ P2020

2x e500v2 cores 3xGE 3xPCIe 512KB 45nm 8W maxProduc-

tion

LSI ACP34424x PowerPC 476

cores8xGE

SRIOx4,3xPCIex4

4MB 45nm N/DProduc-

tion

NetLogicXLP316L

4x MIPS64 cores

2x10GE,8x2.5GE,16xGE,72xFE

PCIe x1,2xSRIOx4.16xTDM,

Utopia/SPI-3

6MB 40nm4.5-

9.5WProduc-

tion

PMC-SierraWinPath3

2 x MIPS34KC650MHz cores, 12proprietary SMT

engines @ 450MHz

2x10GE,8x2.5GE,16xGE,

72xFE,

PCIe x1,2xSRIOx4,16xTDM,

Utopia/SPI-3

2MB 65nm4.5-

9.5WProduc-

tion

Supports IEEE 1588v2 hardware time stamping for Ethernet backhaul timing synchronizationSource: Heavy Reading

3.4 Integrated LTE Base Station Devices

Seven vendors have released details of integrated LTE base station devices, ideal for femtocellsand the growing picocell market. These are summarized in Figure 3.6.

Figure 3.6: Integrated LTE Base Stations Device Summary

COMPANY/DEVICE

THROUGH-

PUT

(DOWN/UP)

CHANNEL

BANDWIDTHSNETWORKS MIMO

PRO-CESS

POW-

ERAVAIL-ABIL ITY

CaviumOCTEON

FusionCNF7280

300Mbit/sDown,

300Mbit/sup

Up to 2x20MHzLTE, LTE Adv.,

WCDMA

Notdis-

closed

28nm

7Wmax

Late2012

CaviumOCTEON

FusionCNF7130

150Mbit/sDown,

150Mbit/sup

Up to 20MHz LTE, WCDMANotdis-

closed40nm

10Wmax

Dec'11/Jan

'12
http://www.heavyreading.com/details.asp?sku_id=2591&skuitem_itemid=1279http://www.heavyreading.com/details.asp?sku_id=2591&skuitem_itemid=1279http://www.heavyreading.com/details.asp?sku_id=2591&skuitem_itemid=1279http://www.heavyreading.com/details.asp?sku_id=2591&skuitem_itemid=1279http://www.heavyreading.com/details.asp?sku_id=2591&skuitem_itemid=1279http://www.heavyreading.com/details.asp?sku_id=2591&skuitem_itemid=1279


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COMPANY/DEVICE

THROUGH-

PUT

(DOWN/UP)

CHANNEL

BANDWIDTHSNETWORKS MIMO

PRO-CESS

POW-

ERAVAIL-ABIL ITY

CaviumOCTEON

FusionCNF7120

100Mbit/sDown,

75Mbit/sup

Up to 20MHz LTE, WCDMANotdis-

closed

40nm6W

max

Dec'11/Jan

'12

DesignArtDAN3300

300 Mbit/stotal

3.5, 5, 7, 10,20MHz

GSM, [W]CDMA,WiMax, LTE,

LTE-Advanced

MU-MIMO

40nm5Wmax

Sam-pling

DesignArtDAN3400

600 Mbit/stotal

5, 7, 10, 14, 20,28, 40, 56, 80,

125, 250,500MHz

GSM, [W]CDMA,WiMax, LTE,

LTE-Advanced

MU-MIMO

40nm8Wmax

Sam-pling

DesignArtDAN3800

1.25 Gbit/stotal

All[W]CDMA, WiMax,

LTE, LTE-Advanced

MU-MIMO,CoMP

40nm8Wmax

Sam-pling

FreescaleQorIQ

ConvergePSC9130/31


N/D LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD,HSPA+

2x2 45nm N/D 3Q11

FreescaleQorIQ

ConvergePSC9132


N/DLTE-FDD, LTE-TDD,

HSPA+2x4 45nm N/D 3Q11

MindspeedTranscede

3000N/D

5, 7, 10, 14, 20,28, 40, 56, 80,125, 250, 500

HSPA+, LTE-Advanced and

WiMax2x2 40nm 8W typ

August2011

Mindspeed

M84xxxTranscede4000/4020

N/D

Up to 10MHz(600MHz

Transcede4000); up to

20MHz (750MHzTranscede 4020)

WCDMA, LTE-FDD,

LTE-TDD, TD-SCDMA

and WiMax

2x2 40nm

15Wmax(12WmaxTran-scede4000)

August2011

OctasicOCT2224W


Up to 20MHz

GSM, EDGE,eEDGE, CDMA

CDMA1x, EVDO,UMTS, HSPA,

WiMax and LTE

2x2 (4x4with twodevices)

90nm 3W 3Q11

PicochipPC5x2


Up to 20MHzHSPA/LTE/ LTE-

Advanced

2x2(extend-able tomore)

N/D N/D N/D

TexasInstruments

TCI6612


Up to 20MHz

LTE, WCDMA/HSPA+, GSM/

EDGE, WiMax, TD-SCDMA, CDMA2000

2x2/1x2(FDD);2x2/2x2(TDD)

40nm N/D 4Q11

TexasInstruments

TCI6614


Up to 20MHz

LTE, WCDMA/HSPA+, GSM/

EDGE, WiMax, TD-SCDMA, CDMA2000

4x4/2x2(FDD);2x8/8x2(TDD)

40nm N/D 3Q11



18/44


All these programmable devices will support 2x2 MIMO and TDD/FDD. The Texas InstrumentsTCI6614 will support 4x4 MIMO, and several other devices will support 4x4 MIMO with multipledevices. DesignArt claims support for MU-MIMO. All the devices will support multimode basestations with a mix of WCDMA, CDMA2000, GPRS, EDGE and WiMax. The Cavium OCTEONFusion CNF7280, due to sample in late 2012, is the first integrated device to be announced withsupport the 40MHz channel bandwidth required for LTE-Advanced. Typical power consumptionfor a three-sector implementation is 5W to 15W. Octasic claims the lowest power consumption, at3W.

Figure 3.7shows additional information on the integrated LTE devices. All these devices have amix of RISC cores, DSP cores and either hardware acceleration or network processor cores(NPU) for networking functions. The DesignArt devices are configured to support pico, micro orlarger base stations with 1, 4 or 16 sectors. The other devices are designed to support femto,pico or micro base stations. The Cavium OCTEON Fusion and Freescale QorIQ Convergedevices support IEEE1588v2 clock synchronization for Ethernet-based backhaul.

Figure 3.7: Integrated LTE Device Features

COMPANY/DEVICE

CONTROL &MAC

PHY SECTORSNETWORK&HOST

INTERFACE

RF

INTER-

FACE

INTERNAL

MEMORY

CaviumOCTEON

FusionCNF7280

SixcnMIPS64 v2

cores @2GHz

8x DSP cores @ 1GHzwith hardwareaccelerators

2

4xGE with1588v2,optionalOFDM

Backhaul

JESD207P/CPRI

Notdisclosed

CaviumOCTEON

FusionCNF7130

FourcnMIPS64 v2

cores @1.5GHz

6x DSP cores @500MHz with hardware

accelerators

2 (with off-chip PHY)

2xGE with1588v2

JESD207P/CPRI

Notdisclosed

CaviumOCTEON

Fusion

CNF7120

TwocnMIPS64 v2

cores @

1GHz

4x DSP cores @500MHz w/ hardware

accelerators

12xGE with

1588v2

JESD207P/

CPRI

Notdisclosed

DesignArtDAN3300

4 x ARM926;6 x TensilicaNPU cores

6x Tensilica RISCcores; 6 x Tensilica

DSP cores1 2 x GE 4 x PRI

3.5Mbytes

DesignArtDAN3400



DSP cores4

2 x GE,SRIOx4

4 x DFE;8 x PRI; 3x SRIOx4

3.5Mbytes

DesignArtDAN3800



DSP cores16 2 x GE

4 xSRIOx4

3.5Mbytes

FreescaleQorIQ

ConvergePSC9130/31

e500v2 RISC

core

SC3850 StarCoreDSP, MAPLE-B2F

accelerator1

2xGE with

IEEE1588v2

3x

JESD207

0.75

Mbytes

FreescaleQorIQ

ConvergePSC9132

2x e500v2RISC cores

2x SC3850 StarCoreDSP, MAPLE-B2P

accelerator1

2xGE withIEEE1588v2,PCIe 5Gx2

4xJESD207,2x CPRIv4.1 @

6G

1.5Mbytes


19/44


COMPANY/DEVICE

CONTROL &MAC

PHY SECTORSNETWORK&HOST

INTERFACE

RF

INTER-

FACE

INTERNAL

MEMORY

Mindspeed

Transcede3000

ARM Cortex-A9 Quad

MPCore,SecurityEngine

5 Ceva DSP cores,5 Mindspeed applica-

tion processors,FEC engine

Up to 3

2xGE,4xTDM, 2x

SRIOx4,PCIe x4

4x CPRI

4.1 7Mbytes

MindspeedM84xxx

Transcede4000/4020

ARM Cortex-A9 QuadMPCore,SecurityEngine

10 Ceva DSP cores +ARM Cortex-A9 Dual

MPCore,10 Mindspeedapplication processors,

FEC engine

Up to 32xGE, 2xSRIOx4,PCIe x4

6x CPRI4.1

7Mbytes

OctasicOCT2224W

ARM11500MHz

24 Opus2 DSP cores Up to 34xGE, PCIex1, SRIOx4

3xJESD207

3.5Mbytes

PicochipPC5x2

N/D picoArray Scalable FE FRMI None

TexasInstruments

TCI6612Cortex A8 2xC66x DSP coresplus coprocessors 1 SRIO, 2xGE OBSAI,CPRI, SPI 4.25MB

TexasInstruments

TCI6614Cortex A8


1 SRIO, 2xGEOBSAI,

CPRI, SPI6.25MB

One or more C66x DSP cores may be shared between PHY and MAC Source: Heavy Reading


20/44


IV. Base Station Silicon VendorsThis section covers the leading base station silicon vendors. Figure 4.1 shows which type ofdevice is shipping or in development from each of the leading vendors.

Figure 4.1: Base Station Silicon Vendors

COMPANY MAC/CONTROL

PHY INTEGRATED MAC/CONTROL/PHY

RF

AnalogDevices

Cavium

DesignArt

Freescale

Genasic

LimeMicrosystems

LSI

Mindspeed

NetLogic

Octasic

Picochip

PMC-Sierra

Semtech

TexasInstruments


4.1 Cavium Inc.

Cavium is one of the leading suppliers of security, network services and content processingsemiconductor devices. It has a successful line of multicore processors, security processors,ARM-based communications processors and video and content processors that address 10Mbit/s to 40 Gbit/s performance for wired and wireless network equipment. In January 2011, thecompany acquired WiMax and LTE baseband vendor Wavesat. The Wavesat devices arecovered in Section 6.3.

Cavium has developed three generations of Octeon processor, and all three generations aresoftware-compatible. The Octeon Plus, introduced in 2006, has an enhanced MIPS64 core with alarger data cache and additional packet processing and quality-of-service accelerators. Octeon II,announced in March 2009, has a further enhanced core, larger data and instruction caches, andadditional hardware acceleration engines. The Octeon II devices have 2 to 32 cnMIPS64 v2 coresrunning up to 1.5GHz.

The Cavium CN6645 covered in this report is one of the latest Octeon II devices (see Figure 4.2).The device is configured for 3G/4G/LTE wireless base stations and integrates 10 cnMIPS64 v2cores. The device has hardware acceleration for packet processing and security. Other devices inthe CN66xx series have two or four cnMIPS64v2 cores.


21/44


Figure 4.2: Octeon II CN66XX Block Diagram

Source: Cavium

In October 2011 Cavium announced the first of a new family of devices specifically designed forthe LTE/3G base station market. The Cavium OCTEON Fusion devices integrate the MIPS64r4cores from OCTEON II and a new wireless baseband PHY architecture based on multiple DSPcores and software developed with expertise from baseband vendor Wavesat, which wasacquired by Cavium in January 2011.

The company has released details on three OCTEON Fusion devices. The 40nm CaviumOCTEON Fusion CNF7120/30 devices support LTE Release 9 and 3G and will be samplingDecember 2011 or January 2012. The 28nm Cavium OCTEON Fusion CNF7280 device will add

support for LTE Advanced and will be available late in 2012. All the devices can be programmedto support the full functionality for LTE/3G wireless base stations including digital front end andEthernet backhaul.

4.2 DesignArt Networks Ltd.

DesignArt is an Israeli fabless semiconductor company with about 70 employees. The companyhas developed several system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions for WiMax and LTE network infrastruc-ture and point-to-point backhaul.


22/44


DesignArt's core product is the DAN3xxx family developed for LTE and backhaul applications.The DAN3000 architecture is a second-generation solution based on the DAN240 developed forWiMax and in production since 2008.

The DAN3000 family uses a three-issue VLIW Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) DSParchitecture is based on technology licensed from Tensilica. Some of the devices also integratetwo ARM926 cores for control and LTE MAC. The first devices started sampling toward the end of2010 and production is planned for the third quarter of 2011.

A full list of DAN3000 devices is shown in Figure 4.3. The devices are pin-compatible and basedon the same design.

Figure 4.3: DesignArt DAN3000 Family

DEVICE APPLICATIONTHROUGH-

PUTSECTORS

INTERNAL

MEMORYEXTERNAL

MEMORYPROCESSOR

DesignArtDAN3100

Remoteradio head

N/A 16 3.5 Mbytes None2 x ARM,12 x

Tensilica cores

DesignArt

DAN3200Unified backhaul 1.25 Gbit/s

Up to 4

PTP Links3.5 Mbytes 2xDDR3

4 x ARM,18 x

Tensilica coresDesignArtDAN3300

Single-modepicocells

300 Mbit/stotal

1 3.5 Mbytes 2xDDR34 x ARM,18 x

Tensilica cores

DesignArtDAN3400

Multi-mode, multi-carrier pico- and

micro BTS

600 Mbit/stotal

4 3.5 Mbytes 3.5 Mbytes4 x ARM,18 x

Tensilica cores

DesignArtDAN3800

High-capacitybaseband pooling

1.25 Gbit/stotal

16 3.5 Mbytes 3.5 Mbytes4 x ARM,18 x

Tensilica cores


4.3 Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

Freescale is a leading supplier of embedded processors for wireless, networking, automotive,consumer and industrial applications. The company was formed out of Motorola's semiconductorbusinesses and acquired by a consortium of private equity funds led by the Blackstone Group inDecember 2006. The company has two processor architectures; the PowerPC-based RISCarchitecture and the StarCore DSP architecture.

The Freescale QorIQ multicore platform was announced in 2008 and is built around a switchfabric, multiple PowerPC e500mc cores and a shared Layer 3 cache. Multiple network connec-tions are provided with PCIe, RapidIO, Ethernet and an embedded Quicc engine to handle low-level network protocols. Many companies are using Freescale PowerQuicc processors for 2G, 3Gand now 4G base stations. The existing QorIQ multicore processor family includes devices with 2,4, 6 or 8 32-bit cores. The next generation, announced in June 2011 and due to start sampling inthe first quarter of 2012, will have up to 12 64-bit cores.

The MSC8156 DSP device was announced in November 2008. The device integrates six SC3850StarCore DSP cores, a multi-accelerator platform engine (MAPLE-B) for Turbo and Viterbidecoding and FFT/DFT acceleration, and a dual RISC core Quicc engine for I/O processing. TheMSC8157 DSP has an enhanced MAPLE-B2 hardware engine solution, and the company isseeing strong design wins for LTE. A similar device is available for WCDMA and HSAP+ 3Gapplications (MSC8158).

Freescale has released an Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC)-based reference design for LTE,WiMax, WCDMA and TD-SCDMA pico base stations. The reference design includes a QorIQ


23/44


P2020 dual-core processor for packet processing and MSC8156 DSP for LTE PHY. For macrobase stations, multiple MSC8156 devices can be used with the larger P4080 8-core multicoreprocessor. The company has developed a full software suite for LTE, HSPA+ and WiMax.

In February 2011 Freescale announced the QorIQ Qonverge devices that integrate both StarCoreDSP and QorIQ multicore RISC cores. The first products are the PSC9130/PSC9131 devices forfemtocells and PSC9132 for picocells. Freescale has been working closely with Alcatel-Lucent onSoC solutions for base stations and Airvana has announced that its multi-mode femtocells will bebased on the new QorIQ Qonverge devices.

These first Qonverge multicore devices are built in 45nm process technology and planned foravailability in the third quarter of 2011. Freescale plans to introduce further QorIQ Qonvergedevices targeting larger cell (metro and macro) base stations built in 28nm process technologylater in 2011.

4.4 LSI Corp.

LSI provides silicon-based solutions for the storage and networking markets. The company'ssolutions for networking include PHY devices, custom application-specific integrated circuits(ASICs), content processors, DSPs, network processors and multicore communication proces-sors. Most of the networking products were acquired when LSI bought Agere Systems.

Figure 4.4: LSI ACP34xx Axxia Mult icore Processor

Source: LSI Logic


24/44


The LSI ACP3400 Axxia multicore processor (see Figure 4.4above) was announced in Septem-ber 2009. The architecture is built around a switch fabric and a message passing protocol thatimplements a virtual pipeline. The initial devices started sampling in February 2010 and have 2 or4 PowerPC 476 32-bit cores.

The LSI ACP3442 is recommended for 3G and 4G/LTE base stations and has 4 PowerPC 47632-bit cores. LSI also has a range of DSP products that can be used in wireless base stations,however none of these is currently recommended for LTE base station designs.

4.5 Mindspeed Technologies Inc.

Mindspeed provides networking devices for communications applications in enterprise, access,metro, wide-area and wireless networks. The Transcede 4000 wireless broadband processorsare a development of the Comcerto VoIP processing devices. The Transcede 4000 devicesintegrate up to 10 Ceva DSP cores, up to 10 Mindspeed application processing engines, asecurity engine and two ARM Cortex A9 multicore processors. PHY processing is handled by adual-core ARM Cortex A9 multicore processor. MAC and packet processing is handled by aquad-core ARM Cortex A9 multicore processor.

The Transcede 4000 family includes the Transcede 4000/4020 for 4G macro and larger pico basestations and the Transcede 3000 for smaller base stations. All these devices will handle PHY,MAC and packet processing for LTE. All the devices integrate GE, SRIO and CPRI interfaces.Mindspeed will supply baseline LTE PHY code and Interphase has developed an AMC modulebased on the Transcede 4000.

4.6 NetLogic Microsystems Inc.

NetLogic Microsystems is a leading supplier of networking silicon devices including multicoreprocessors, content processors, network search engines, embedded processors and high-speedGE PHY devices. The company went public in 2004 and merged with RMI in June 2009. In March2011, NetLogic entered an agreement to acquire Optichron, which develops digital front end(DFE) components for wireless base stations. In September 2011 Broadcom announced that itwould acquire NetLogic for approximately $3.7 billion.

Figure 4.5: NetLogic XLP Multicore Processor

Source: NetLogic


25/44


Figure 4.5(above) shows the latest NetLogic multicore processor family. The 40nm XLP proces-sor builds on the 90nm XLR architecture developed by RMI. The NetLogic multicore architectureis built around a shared memory switch that connects up to 8 MIPS64 cores and distributedinterconnects to the 8MB Layer 3 cache, memory controllers and networking I/O. Each MIPS64supports 4 separate hardware threads, giving the devices up to 32 virtual 16 NXCPU cores.

The NetLogic XLP316L processor has four MIPS64 cores, 8 GE interfaces or two XAUI 10GEinterfaces, and both SRIO and PCIe interfaces. The device is targeted at 3G and 4G/LTEwireless base stations.

4.7 Octasic Inc.

Octasic provides media and wireless baseband processing silicon and software solutions. Thecompany's multi-core DSP solutions are based on a unique asynchronous DSP architecture.Octasic is shipping DSP-based voice processing and media processing solutions. In June 2010,the company announced the OCT2224W multi-core DSP devices for femto, micro and pico basestation PHY and MAC.

Figure 4.6: Octasic OCT2224W Block Diagram

Source: Octasic


26/44


The OCT2224W has 6x4 Opus2 DSP cores and a single ARM 11 core for control and MACprocessing. The device has very low power consumption at 3W and is expected to be available tocustomers from the third quarter of 2011.

4.8 Picochip Ltd.

Picochip, founded in 2000, has developed a range of wireless base station PHY solutions basedon the PicoArray multicore DSP architecture. Its many WiMax design wins include Airspan, Intel,Ericsson, Nortel and Redline Communications. The company coined the term "femtocell" and is akey supplier of silicon for 3G femtocells having shipped more than one million chips. Picochip hassaid it plans to go for an initial public offering (IPO) sometime in 2011.

The PC203 base station PHY processor is optimized for multimode femtocells. It integrates 273picoArray processors, security acceleration, Ethernet MAC and three analog interfaces. Picochipprovides firmware and reference designs for a range of applications including LTE, WiMax,HSPA, WCDMA and TD-SCMA. A larger device (PC202) that integrates an ARM926 processorcore is also available. Both devices are in production. The company is shipping an eNodeBdevelopment system based on the PC203.

The PC500, shown in Figure 4.7, is an optimized version of the PC203 in the same 90nmtechnology. The PC500 will support dual-mode LTE/HSPA and channel bandwidths up to 20MHz. The maximum throughput is 150 Mbit/s downstream and 75 Mbit/s upstream. The PC500 isdesigned for femtocells, but larger systems can be built using multiple devices. The device iscurrently sampling to customers.

Figure 4.7: Picochip PC500 Block Diagram

Source: Picochip

Picochip is working on a third-generation product family. The PC5x2 devices will be optimized forspecific applications and will integrate processors for control and MAC processing. A release datehas not been announced, but the first devices are expected to arrive in late 2011 or early 2012.

4.9 PMC-Sierra Inc.

PMC-Sierra is a leading network silicon vendor shipping a mix of MIPS-based processors, high-speed mixed signal devices and communication semiconductors including TDM, Sonet/SDH,


27/44


Ethernet and PON. In November 2010, PMC-Sierra completed the acquisition of Wintegra, afabless semiconductor company founded in January 2000 that develops single-chip communica-tions processors for access networks. Key customers include Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent and Tellabs.

The 65nm WinPath3 is a third-generation device. WinPath3 integrates up to 12 RISC enginesand two MIPS 34K cores. PMC-Sierra has developed software for the LTE MAC and backhaulpacket processing, It has also introduced a half-size device, the WinPath3-SL. Volume pricing isless than $50 for WinPath3 and less than $25 for WinPath3 SL. AMC modules for LTE basestations using the WinPath3 are available from Accipiter, CommAgility, Interphase and Xalyo.

4.10 Texas Instruments Inc.

Texas Instruments is a leading supplier of multicore DSP devices for a wide range of applications,including wireless base stations. The company's DSPs are widely used in 2G and 3G basestations, including those supporting HSPA+. C64x+-based AMC modules for use in base stationsare available from CommAgility. The latest C66x+-based multicore DSP devices provide anattractive upgrade path, supporting LTE and LTE-Advanced. Texas Instruments also has a rangeof RF components that have been used in WiMax systems, but it has not yet announced anyintegrated WiMax or LTE solutions.

The four TCI66xx Keystone devices included in this report (TCI6612/14/16/18) integrate 2 or 41.2GHz 66x+ cores and acceleration for security and packet processing. Two devices (TCI6612/14) also integrate an ARM Cortex A8 RISC core for control and service applications. The devicesare suitable for small cells as well as large macro base stations. The TCI6618 will support the40MHz minimum channel bandwidth required for LTE-Advanced.


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V. Handset & CPE DevicesThis section covers LTE baseband devices and LTE-ready application processors for handsetsand customer premises equipment (CPE). Handsets and CPE cover all types of LTE subscriberunits, including smartphones, tablets, PDAs and other mobile devices, USB dongles, PC cards,residential gateways and modems. All these devices require cost-effective and very low-power

silicon solutions.

Figure 5.1: LTE Subscriber Unit


Figure 5.1shows a typical LTE subscriber unit with network interface, baseband, AFE, RF front-

end and application processor. The technology is very similar to that used in the base stationdevices; however, the throughput is lower and integration much higher. All the leading vendorshave chipsets that include application processor, baseband, AFE, RF front end and in manycases a power management chip. Most vendors supply chipsets mounted onto a multi-chipmodule to reduce cost and real estate.

5.1 LTE CPE & Handset Baseband Devices

Figure 5.2 summarizes LTE handset and CPE baseband devices from leading vendors. Inte-grated baseband and application processor devices are covered in Section 5.2. LTE subscriberbaseband devices are shipping from Altair, Cavium (Wavesat), GCT Semiconductor, Qualcommand ST-Ericsson. Broadcom (Beceem), Nvidia (Icera), Renesas and Sequans are samplingdevices to customers. Samsung and Motorola have in-house LTE baseband. Fujitsu, NEC and

Panasonic Mobile Communications have developed an LTE mobile handset SoC design under acollaborative project with NTT Docomo in Japan.

Early devices from GCT, Sequans and ST-Ericsson supported just LTE. Devices from Altair andCavium support LTE and WiMax. Devices from the rest support a mix of LTE, 3G and 2Gnetworks. The Qualcomm MSM9600 and Nvidia ICE8061 will handle 50 Mbit/s (Cat 2). Mostdevices will handle 100 Mbit/s (Cat 3). The Broadcom BCM21880, Intel ComMAX LT8000,Marvell PXA1801 and Qualcomm MDM9625 devices will support 150 Mbit/s (Cat 4). The Broad-com BCM21880 is believed to be the only device already sampling the supports LTE category 4.


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Most devices will support both FDD and TDD LTE. The Innofidei TD-LTE device is a TDD-onlysolution. The GCT GDM7240, Nvidia ICE8061 and ST-Ericsson M720 platform do not supportTDD LTE. Semiconductor technology used for these devices is moving quickly with the earliestdevices using 55/65nm, the latest devices using 40nm and devices from Qualcomm planned forthe end of 2011 using 28nm technology.

Figure 5.2: LTE CPE & Handset Device Summary

COMPANY/DEVICE

NETWORKSLTE UE

CATEGORYFDD PROCESS

AVAIL-ABIL ITY

Altair FourGee-3100

LTE, WiMax, XGP 3 FDD, TDD N/D Sampling

BroadcomBCM21880

LTE, WiMax 4 FDD, TDD N/D Sampling

Cavium OdysseyOD9010

LTE , WiMax, XG-PHS 3TDD, H-FDD

and FDD55nm Production

GCT GDM7240 LTE 3 FDD N/D Production

Innofidei TD-LTE LTE N/D TDD N/D Sampling

Intel ComMAXLT8000

LTE, 3G, 2G, 4 FDD, TDD N/D N/D

Marvell PXA1801LTE, DC-HSPA+, TD-

SCDMA, EDGE4 FDD, TDD N/D N/D

Nvidia ICE8061LTE, HSPA+,GPRS/EDGE

2 FDD 40nm Sampling

QualcommMSM9600

2G, 3G, LTE 2 FDD, TDD N/D Production

QualcommMDM9615

LTE, DC-HSPA+, EVDORev-B and TD-SCDMA

N/D FDD, TDD 28nm Late 2011

Qualcomm

MDM9625

LTE, DC-HSPA+, EVDO

Rev-B and TD-SCDMA 4 FDD, TDD 28nm 4Q11

Renesas MobileSP2531

LTE, EVDO Rev. B,HSPA+

3 FDD, TDD N/D Sampling

SequansSQN3010

LTE 3 FDD, TDD 65nm Sampling

ST-EricssonM700 Platform

LTE 3 FDD, TDD N/D Production

ST-EricssonM720 Platform

LTE/HSPA+ /EDGE 3 FDD N/D Production

ST-EricssonM7400

LTE (FDD/TDD, HSPA+/EDGE/TD-SCDMA

3 FDD, TDD N/D Sampling


Figure 5.3 shows LTE CPE and handset device features. Most devices support channel band-widths up to 20MHz. The Cavium Odyssey supports up to 18MHz and the 50Mbit/s NvidiaICE8061 just 10MHz. VoLTE is supported by devices from Altair, Broadcom, GCT, Renesas andST-Ericsson. None of these devices is ready for production yet.

Interfaces to the RF device are either analog or digital. The GCT GDM7240 is the only devicewith integrated RF. Power consumption for the Cavium Odyssey OD9010 is 120mW. None of theother vendors has released power consumption information. Packages are typically 8x8mm or


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9x9mm. The GCT GDM7240 is larger at 13x13mm. Qualcomm has released very little informa-tion on planned products.

Figure 5.3: LTE CPE & Handset Device Features

COMPANY/DEVICE

CHANNELBANDWIDTHS

VOLTE MIMORF

INTERFACEPOWER PACKAGE

Altair FourGee-3100 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20MHz 4x2 Analog N/D 9x9 VFBGA

BroadcomBCM21880

Up to 20 MHz 2x2 N/D N/D N/D

Cavium OdysseyOD9010

3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14,17, 18MHz

N/D 2x2 Digital IQ 120 mW9x9 mm

FPBGA-256

GCT GDM72401.4MHz, 3MHz, 5MHz,10MHz, 15MHz, 20MHz

YesIntegrated

RFN/D

13x13mmBGA

Innofidei TD-LTE N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

Intel ComMAXLT8000

N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

Nvidia ICE8061 1.4, 3, 5, 10MHz Yes Analog IQ N/D 8x8mmBGA

Marvell PXA1801 N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

QualcommMDM9600


QualcommMDM9615


QualcommMDM9625


Renesas MobileSP2531

1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20MHz Yes DigRF N/D BGA

Sequans SQN3010 10, 20MHz N/D 2x2 N/D N/D N/D

ST-Ericsson M700Platform

1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz Yes N/D N/D N/D

ST-Ericsson M720Platform

1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz Yes N/D N/D N/D

ST-Ericsson M7400 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 MHz Yes N/D N/D N/D


5.2 LTE Ready Appli cation Processors

LTE smartphones use the highest-performance application processors. Figure 5.4 lists theleading application processors that are suitable for LTE smartphones and tablets. The latestsolutions from Qualcomm integrate application processor cores and LTE/3G modem. Severalsmartphone manufacturers including Apple and Samsung have their own application processors.Other vendors with mobile application processors are Marvell and Freescale.

The Intel Atom Z670 launched in April 2011, and slower Z6xx family members are designed fortablets. The device requires a separate SM35 chipset. The Nvidia Tegra 2 application processorwith two ARM A9 cores is widely used in smartphones today. Both devices are in 45nm and arecurrently in production.


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The Qualcomm Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chipsets integrate modem, Snapdragon applicationprocessor with one, two or four cores, and Adreno graphics processor. The MSM8x55 andMSM8x60 have Scorpion application processors and integrate a 3G modem and Adreno 2xx. TheMSM8930, MSM8960 and MSM8974 use the new 28nm Krait application processor cores andintegrate LTE (Cat 2, Cat 3 or Cat 4) and 3G modem. The Qualcomm APQ8064 device integratesfour Krait cores and can be used with the Qualcomm MDM9625 LTE modem devices for150Mbit/s LTE (Cat 4) applications before the MSM8974 is available in 2013.

Renesas and ST-Ericsson offer application processors as part of their mobile platforms. TheRenesas APE5R and ST-Ericsson A95xx application processors have dual ARM A9 cores. The28nm ST-Ericsson A9600 application processor, planned for the second half of 2011, will havetwo ARM A15 cores. The Texas Instruments OMAP44x0 application processors also integratetwo ARM A9 processor cores.

Figure 5.4: LTE Ready Application Processor Summary

COMPANY/DEVICE

INTEGRATED

MODEMPROCESSOR

CORENUMBER

OF CORESMAX CORE

SPEEDPROCESS

AVAIL-ABIL ITY

Intel Atom Z670 None Atom 1 1.5GHz 45nm Production

Nvidia Tegra 2 None ARM A9 2 1.0GHz 45nm Production

QualcommMSM8x55

HSPA+,CDMA2000 1X,1xEVDO Rev.

0/A/B

Scorpion 1 1.4GHz 45nm Production

QualcommMSM8x60

HSPA+,CDMA2000 1X,1xEVDO Rev.

0/A/B

Scorpion 2 1.5GHz 45nm Production

QualcommMSM8960

LTE Cat 2,TD-SCDMA

Krait 2 N/D 28nm Sampling

Qualcomm

MSM8930

LTE Cat 3,

TD-SCDMA

Krait 1 N/D 28nm 1H12

QualcommMSM8974

LTE Cat 4,DC-HSPA+,

1xAdv/DOrA/B,TD-SCDMA

Krait 4 N/D 28nm 1H13

QualcommAPQ8064

None Krait 4 N/D 28nm 1H12

Renesas APE5R None ARM A9 2 N/D N/D Sampling

ST-Ericsson A9500 None ARM A9 2 1.2GHz 45nm Production

ST-Ericsson A9540 None ARM A9 2 1.85GHz 32nm 2H11

ST-Ericsson A9600 None ARM A15 2 2.5GHz 28nm 2H11

Texas InstrumentsOMAP4430

None ARM9 2 1GHz 45nm Sampling

Texas InstrumentsOMAP4460

None ARM9 2 1GHz 45nm 1Q11


Figure 5.5shows the key features of the leading LTE-ready application processors. Intel, Nvidiaand Qualcomm use internally developed graphics cores. Renesas, ST-Ericsson and TexasInstruments license the Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX5 or PowerVR SGX6 ("Rogue")


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multi-processor graphics IP. Later devices support HDMI display output and 720p or 1080 HDvideo playback at 30 frames per second. The Texas Instruments OMAP devices also support 3Dvideo playback. Several devices support both front and back cameras up to 20 megapixels (MP)and 12MP respectively.

Figure 5.5: LTE Ready Application Processor Features

COMPANY/DEVICE

GRAPHICSCORE (GPU)

DISPLAYCONTROLLERS

VIDEO PLAY-BACK (30FPS)

3DVIDEO

CAMERASUPPORT

PERIPHERALINTERFACE

Intel AtomZ670

Intel VGA, HDMI N/D N/D N/DUSB, SDIO,

SATA

Nvidia Tegra 2 Nvidia ULPHDMI,

LCD/CRT1080p N/D

12MP +5MP

N/D

QualcommMSM8x55

Adreno 205 WXGA 720p N/D 12MP N/D

QualcommMSM8x60

Adreno 220WXGA with

HDMI mirroring1080p N/D 12MP N/D

Qualcomm

MSM8930Adreno 305 N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

QualcommMSM8960

Adreno 225 N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

QualcommAPQ8064

Adreno 320 N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

RenesasAPE5R

ImaginationTechnologies

PowerVRSGX MP

N/D 1080p N/D N/D N/D

ST-EricssonA9500


ST-EricssonA9540 N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

ST-EricssonA9600


"Rogue"N/D N/D N/D N/D N/D

TexasInstrumentsOMAP4430


PowerVRSGX540

WUXGA +HDMI

1080p 720p20MP +

5MPUART, SDIO,

I2C

TexasInstrumentsOMAP4460


PowerVRSGX540

WUXGA +HDMI

1080p 1080p20MP +12MP

UART, SDIO,I2C



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VI. Handset & CPE Silicon VendorsThis section covers the leading handset and CPE silicon vendors. Figure 6.1shows which typeof device is shipping or in development from each of the leading vendors.

Figure 6.1: Handset/CPE Silicon Vendors

COMPANY APPLICATIONPROCESSOR

BASEBAND INTEGRATED APPLICATIONPROCESSOR/BASEBAND

RF

Altair

Analog Devices

Broadcom

Cavium

Fujitsu

GCT

Genasic

Innofidei Intel

Marvell

Maxim

Nvidia

Qualcomm

Renesas

Semtech

Sequans

ST-Ericsson

Texas Instruments


6.1 Altair Semiconductor Ltd.

Altair, formed in May 2005 and based in Israel, recently completed a $26 million funding round,led by Jerusalem Venture Partners. It has developed low-power baseband and RF devices formobile devices. The PHY implementation is based on Altair's proprietary Optimized OFDMAProcessor (O2P) that was developed specifically for OFDM applications, such as WiMax and LTE.

The FourGee-3100 LTE baseband device integrates MAC, PHY and AFE, security accelerationand 32-bit MIPS RISC core. The FourGee-6200 RF transceiver device has analog basebandinterface and supports both TDD and FDD LTE across the full 700MHz to 2.7GHz range. TheFourGee-6150 RF transceiver device supports just TDD in the 2.3-2.7GHz range. Both devicessupport 20MHz channel bandwidth. The devices were first sampled to customers in September2009, and Altair claims 15 customers so far, including IPWireless. Altair is testing the solutionwith Tier 1 infrastructure vendors including Alcatel-Lucent and carriers including Vodafone.

Altair is focusing on PC-centric applications including USB dongles, routers and SIP modules fortablets. The company is working on a next-generation solution and recently announced it hadlicensed MIPS Technologies' multi-threaded synthesizable processor IP for next-generation


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chipsets. Altair is working on solutions for LTE-Advanced and will support release 9 using asoftware upgrade and release 10 in a new product planned for 2014/2015.

6.2 Broadcom Corp.

Broadcom is a $6.8 billion company with a market-leading position for silicon solutions, covering

broadband communications and networking. Founded in 1991, the company has approximately9,460 employees worldwide. In November 2010 Broadcom acquired Beceem Communications, aprivately-held company that developed silicon solutions for LTE and WiMax, for $316 million.Beceem Communications had developed six generations of WiMax baseband devices and wascash positive.

The BCM21880 (was Beceem BSC500) multimode device announced in February 2010 supportsWiMax and LTE and is the first CPE device to support 150 Mbit/s downstream (Cat 4). Broadcomalready has several customers for the BCM21880, which is expected to go into production duringthe second half of 2011. Broadcom is working on future devices that will include integration withmultimedia functions.

6.3 Cavium Inc.

Cavium is a worldwide leader in security, network services and content processing semiconductorsolutions. It has a successful line of multicore processors, security processors, ARM-basedcommunications processors and video and content processors that support 10 Mbit/s to 40 Gbit/sthroughputs for wired and wireless network equipment. Cavium multicore processors are used inLTE base stations, covered in Section 4.1.

In January 2011, Cavium acquired WiMax and LTE baseband vendor Wavesat. Wavesat wasfounded in 2003, and its first fixed WiMax device, developed with Atmel, began shipping in 2004.The NP7256 mobile WiMax device was introduced in February 2007. The first WiMax devicesfrom Wavesat implemented the OFDMA and lower MAC in hardware.

The Odyssey 8500, announced in May 2008, was based on a new proprietary DSP architecture.The DSP architecture is a customized version of a licensed core. In May 2008, Wavesat alsoreleased details of the Odyssey 9000 series LTE devices, using the same architecture.

The 55nm Odyssey 9010 device was sample

LTE Baseband, RF, Application Processors-A Heavy Reading Competitve Analysis

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