NextWave Broadband, a subsidiary of NextWave Wireless, outlined the roadmap for its family of WiMAX baseband and multi-band RFIC chipset platforms. The chipsets included in the roadmap incorporate numerous NextWave innovations to improve performance, reduce power consumption, enable new types of advanced multimedia applications, and allow seamless operation and roaming across worldwide WiMAX frequencies and profiles.
NextWave’s second generation WiMAX platform, the NW2000, encompasses the NW2100 family of mobile subscriber baseband SOCs, the NW2700 and NW2800 family of WiMAX access station baseband SOCs, and the NW2200 family of highly integrated multi-band RFICs. Scheduled for release with reference designs in the first half of 2008, the NW2000 mobile subscriber platform is designed to provide customers with an ultra-low-power, integrated WiMAX/Wi-Fi solution to support power-limited mobile devices in a wide range of frequency bands.
Nextwave said that by employing 65 nanometer CMOS process technology, its NW2100 chipset family will be optimized for bandwidth intensive mobile-multimedia applications such as mobile television, streaming video, and video conferencing, and for QoS sensitive applications such as VoIP. When coupled with the frequency-agile NW2200 RFIC family, key features are expected to include:
- IEEE 802.16e standard-based;
- WiMAX Forum Wave 2 compliant;
- Ultra-low-power, integrated WiMAX/Wi-Fi baseband SOC designed for outstanding battery life using 65nm CMOS process technology;
- Integrated 802.11 a/b/g;
- Supports Wi-Fi in 2.4 GHz ISM band;
- Mobility-optimized ASIC architecture with advanced power-save features to extend battery life for multimedia-centric mobile devices;
- Supports global TDD and FDD spectrum allocations from 1.7 GHz to 3.8 GHz;
- Supports major worldwide WiMAX spectrum allocations of 2.3 GHz (including the WCS band in the U.S.), 2.5 GHz (including the EBS/BRS band in the U.S.), and 3.3 — 3.8 GHz (including 3.65 — 3.7 GHz for licensed commons operation);
- Dynamically programmable WiMAX/Wi-Fi channel bandwidths of 3.5 MHz, 5 MHz, 7 MHz, 8.75 MHz, 10 MHz, and 20 MHz to support various profiles;
- Highly-integrated, direct-conversion RFIC architecture with optimized RF-baseband interface for reduced BOM cost, ease of design, and improved spectral efficiency;
- Supports highly scalable RF channel bandwidths from 1.75 MHz to 20 MHz;
- Supports wide range of host OS environments and system interfaces, including SDIO, SPI, USB2, and PCIe, to enable widest possible range of device types;
- Flexi-MAC architecture supports hosted or fully-integrated MAC for optimal flexibility, accelerated time-to-market, and reduced solution cost;
- Enhanced MIMO support;
- Supports optional beamforming solutions;
- Up to 36 Mbps throughput capability;
- Support of 802.16h contention-based protocol to enable WiMAX operation in license-exempt bands;
- Provides improved performance and interoperability between Wi-Fi and WiMAX frequency bands;
- Mobility-optimized SOC architecture with advanced power-save features that delivers maximum throughput for demanding mobile users;
- Highly efficient single radio solution that supports multiple service types including unicast, multicast, and NextWave’s optimized broadcast solution;
- Convergence sublayer support for next-generation IPv6 networks;
- Multiple reference designs to minimize development risk and time-to-market for multiple device types including handsets, smartphones, PDAs, PC modem cards, fixed CPE modems, USB dongles and Personal Media Players (PMPs); and
- Support for multiple host OS environments to allow the widest possible range of device types.
Samples of the company’s first generation WiMAX baseband system-on-a-chip (SOC) and matched multi-band RFIC will be available this quarter. Initial availability of the company’s second generation chips, designed for high-volume commercial production, is planned for the first half of 2008.
http://www.nextwave.com
