MaxLinear announced a new reference design for next-generation 5G infrastructure Radio Units (RUs) that combines Intel’s high performance and low power Agilex FPGA family with MaxLinear RF transceivers and MaxLIN ultra-wideband digital predistortion (DPD) solution.
Highlights:
- Intel’s Agilex SoC FPGA devices use heterogeneous 3D system-in-package (SiP) technology to integrate Intel’s first FPGA fabric built on 10 nm SuperFin Technology. Leveraging this advanced process technology and 2nd Gen Intel Hyper-flex FPGA Architecture enables these FPGAs to deliver ~2X better fabric performance per watt when compared to competitive 7 nm FPGA portfolios. Agilex SoC FPGAs offer an integrated quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 processor and a custom logic migration path from FPGA to structured eASIC for cost and power benefits in the high-volume production.
- Intel’s O-RAN, Fronthaul, and Low-PHY is a complete set of building blocks required to implement an O-RAN Alliance Split 7.2x compliant O-RU fronthaul interface in an Agilex FPGA. Intel also offers FlexRAN software stack, an O-RAN compliant Split 7.2x software covering High-PHY functionality for O-DU running on Intel Xeon processors.
- MaxLinear’s high-performance RF transceiver portfolio supports up to 400MHz instantaneous bandwidth (IBW) and includes the MxL16xx Quad-RF and MxL155x Octal-RF families. These transceivers are software compatible, creating a single platform solution that customers can leverage for radio applications, including macro, massive MIMO, and small cell.
- MaxLinear’s MaxLIN uses advanced machine learning algorithms to exceed the 3GPP and FCC unwanted emissions requirements with margin while delivering high PA efficiencies of >50%. This capability dramatically reduces power consumption for an 8-transceiver macro implementation by >10% compared with competitive DPD offerings.
“The Open RAN ecosystem will immediately benefit from our cooperation with industry leader Intel. Our RU reference platforms, featuring Intel Agilex FPGAs, will provide the most flexible programmable solution with the highest system performance available on the market for global Open RAN radio use cases,” said Brendan Walsh, vice president of MaxLinear’s Wireless Infrastructure Group. “These high efficiency reference solutions will dramatically reduce the power consumed by 5G radio systems while simultaneously maximizing network performance.”
“MaxLinear’s RF transceivers together with Intel FPGAs and IP deliver 2x performance per watt versus competing FPGAs and can offer a leading portfolio of radio solutions to our wireless systems customers allowing them to speed up time to market,” said Mike Fitton, vice president and general manager of the Intel Programmable Solutions Group’s Network Business Division. “This is another strong example of industry collaboration – reducing time and complexity, while dramatically accelerating delivery of advanced 5G solutions.”
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