Fixed Mobile Convergence

To address multi-standard requirements spanning from small to large cells, communications semiconductor supplier Freescale Semiconductor has readied what it claims is the industry's first multimode wireless base station processor family. The new QorIQ Qonverge portfolio integrates leading DSP and communications processor technologies to realize true base station-on-chip, according to Freescale (News - Alert).

Built on advanced heterogeneous multicore technology, Freescale’s new QorIQ Qonverge series is the first scalable family of products sharing the same architecture to address multi-standard requirements spanning from small to large cells.

The explosion of smart connected devices with increasing data and video content has created a mobile data tsunami, requiring OEMs and carriers to dramatically boost network performance while controlling capital expenditure costs, increasing power efficiency and supporting the emergence of 4G technologies.

The QorIQ Qonverge portfolio of base station-on-chip products is based on a common architecture and integrates communications processing, digital signal processing (DSP) and wireless acceleration technologies into a single system-on-a-chip (SoC) in various configurations optimized for next-generation femtocell, picocell, metrocell and macrocell base stations. Advanced process technology and exceptional integration allow the convergence of multiple functions, traditionally performed on separate FPGAs, ASICs, DSPs and processors, to be incorporated on a single device.

According to Freescale, this integration lowers part counts and delivers significant power, cost and footprint reductions for base stations. The common architecture spanning from femto cells to macro cells optimizes R&D investments and software reuse.

In a statement, said Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Networking and Multimedia Group, “The current explosion in mobile data traffic worldwide provides unique challenges and opportunities for wireless infrastructure equipment providers as they race to increase capacity and capability. Freescale’s highly integrated QorIQ Qonverge portfolio enables base station manufacturers to provide a dramatic, step-function improvement in performance, power and cost in a single, flexible architecture.”

Freescale said that QorIQ Qonverge technology can deliver 4x cost reduction and 3x power reduction for LTE (News - Alert) + WCDMA macro base stations, and 4x cost and power reductions for LTE + WCDMA pico base stations when compared to wireless infrastructure equipment powered by discrete silicon products.

Freescale leveraged its broad R&D scale, deep application knowledge of the wireless space and extensive IP portfolio to develop the new product family. These new 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. The portfolio’s products support multiple standards, including GSM, LTE – FDD & TDD, LTE-Advanced, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA and WiMAX (News - Alert). In addition, the family’s flexible architecture allows support for evolving standards with software upgrades.

The QorIQ Qonverge portfolio includes four distinct products optimized for small cell (femto and pico) and large cell (metro and macro) applications. It also supports remote radio head and emerging cloud-based radio access network (C-RAN) configurations.

The first products in Freescale’s QorIQ Qonverge multicore portfolio are built in 45-nm process technology and planned for availability in the second half of 2011. The products are the PSC9130/PSC9131 femto SoCs and PSC9132 picocell/enterprise femto SoC devices. Freescale plans to introduce portfolio members targeting larger cell (metro and macro) base stations built in 28-nm process technology later this year.