Freescale Semiconductor has begun sampling the first versions of its QorIQ Qonverge multimode platform for picocell and femtocell base stations.
Freescale’s QorIQ Qonverge scalable line of processors is built on the same architecture that spans from small- to large-cell base stations. The first of these devices, the PSC9130/31 femtocell SoCs (for eight to 16 simultaneous users) and PSC9132 picocell/enterprise SoC devices (for up to 100 simultaneous users)support a range of air interfaces, including LTE (FDD/TDD), WCDMA (HSPA+), WiMAX, UMTS and CDMA. The devices also incorporate glueless RFIC communication and antennae interfaces, eliminating the need for additional chips (such as FPGAs) and ultimately reducing board space and cost. The ultra-integrated PSC913x family also provides support for GPS synchronization and 2G/3G sniffing in a single device.
The QorIQ Qonverge processors combine multiple Power Architecture cores and high-performance StarCore DSPs with a MAPLE multimode baseband accelerator, packet processing acceleration engines, interconnect fabric and next-node process technology. Freescale said one its QorIQ Qonverge advantages is the ability to offload offload Layer 2 processing and above to MPU cores instead of DSP cores, delivering significant efficiency advantages. Freescale plans to introduce portfolio members targeting larger cell (metro and macro) base stations built in 28-nm process technology later this year.
“Availability of the first QorIQ Qonverge products is a milestone for the wireless industry, which is in dire need of innovative new solutions to address challenging power requirements and exploding demand for additional bandwidth,” said Scott Aylor, director and general manager of Freescale’s Wireless Access Division. “Freescale’s QorIQ Qonverge portfolio offers unprecedented scalability and software compatibility, giving customers flexibility, reduced cost and design-time savings as they move up to larger capacity systems.” http://www.freescale.com/qoriqqonverge
