Blue Danube Systems, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, introduced its 96-element, second-generation 5G-ready Massive MIMO system.
Blue Danube’s the BeamCraft 600 series supports simultaneous beamforming over multiple frequency bands and across multiple cellular standards, allowing operators to deliver increased capacity through a single compact system.
The company said its Massive MIMO can dynamically direct radio frequency (RF) beams where mobile traffic is high and without changes to existing cell sites or smartphones. The 96-element BeamCraft 600 supports up to two active mid bands using 16 software configurable beams, double the capacity of the company’s previous generation. An integrated passive low-band option is also available to further conserve antenna mount positions. Blue Danube has deployed active solutions in 3 mid bands to date (AWS, PCS, DCS) and will trial the multi-band BeamCraft 600 in 2Q’18. Additional products supporting higher frequency bands including TDD will be available in 2H’18.
“Blue Danube’s portfolio of Massive MIMO products enables operators to flexibly customize RF energy to optimize capacity, coverage and cell edge performance.” said Mark Pinto, CEO & President of Blue Danube Systems. “Our 5G-ready architecture allows beam-based network management leading to virtualization of the network RF functions. By avoiding the rigidity imposed by other radio architectures, we are enabling a completely flexible RAN ecosystem.”
- Blue Danube Systems is headed by Dr. Mark Pinto, who previously was was an executive vice president at Applied Materials, where he launched the company’s solar business. Earlier in his career, Dr. Pinto was CTO of the Lucent Microelectronics Group and general manager of a wireless/wireline product division.
- The company was founded by Dr. Mihai Banu, who developed the Blue Danube concepts independently since 2006. Previously, he was R&D director at Agere Systems, working on analog circuits, RF systems for wireless LANs and wireless circuits research, and before that was Head of the Communications Circuits Research department at Lucent Technologies.
- Investors in Blue Danube Systems include Sequoia, Northgate, Silver Lake, and AT&T.
