Companies to deliver a complete, programmable silicon and software solution

Boston, USA - WiMAX World 2005 stand number 117

picoChip and Wintegra today announced joint development of reference designs for a new generation of WiMAX basestations (BS). These designs, based on standard components already on the market, provide a framework from which equipment manufacturers can implement a wide range of 802.16e compliant basestation products. This dramatically reduces the time and cost for OEMs to develop systems, while still enabling complete flexibility and programmability.

The solutions combine picoChip’s picoArrayTM family of massively parallel digital signal processors (DSPs) and industry-leading software for the WiMAX PHY with Wintegra’s WinMaxTM processor and software for a complete MAC solution. Coupled with Wintegra’s existing WinPathTM family of access packet processors and software for transport and backhaul functionality, the joint reference designs offer unmatched flexibility for both radio (air) interface access cards and network interface transport cards, with scalability to cover pico, micro and macro basestation architectures.

A unique aspect of the joint design is that it is software defined: both companies offer fully tested software and vendor-independent APIs that permit rapid integration of MAC, PHY and RF components, as well as additional system software. To date, most WiMAX reference designs have focused solely on “closed” board-level solutions, providing benefits for those seeking to directly manufacture the design, but provide little flexibility for those seeking to add their own features. The picoChip / Wintegra design offers the same benefits of complete integration and interoperability testing, while retaining a programmable, scalable, open approach enabling OEMs to customize and differentiate their offerings.

Will Strauss of Forward Concepts commented, “We are seeing a growing trend for semiconductor suppliers to deliver more and more of the system, with finished, compliant reference designs. That is one of the critical advantages WiMAX may have over other wireless technologies: the openness and pace of its eco-system. In their respective areas both Wintegra and picoChip have been following that strategy with a lot of success. It is very significant that they have joined forces in this way, to offer not just a complete, tested solution – but a wholly software-defined and customizable one.”

“Our development relationship with Wintegra complements our other partnerships and is validation of our strategy to provide a complete portfolio of wireless solutions,” said Rupert Baines, VP Marketing at picoChip. “The combination of picoChip’s industry leading PHY with the Wintegra MAC and transport capabilities will provide a very flexible approach for customers seeking to design their own system, as well those seeking a more complete reference design.”

“Wintegra is excited to be working with picoChip on this reference design,” said Michael Phillip, VP of Software Systems at Wintegra. “picoChip and ourselves share a common goal of reducing time to market for our customers by providing complete, open solutions consisting of fully tested, production-ready silicon and software. This reference design draws upon the respective strengths of each company while offering our customers tremendous value in terms of integration, scalability, and flexibility.”

The design will initially target the 802.16e standard, and will provide a flexible, scalable, software-based upgrade path as new requirements appear in this emerging market. Operators will also benefit from the scalability and flexibility of the Wintegra and picoChip architecture as it will allow them to undertake field software upgrades, avoiding the need for expensive hardware improvements or replacement programs.

The initial release of the joint reference design is targeted for completion in late 2005, with prototypes using the software-compatible WinPath-1 silicon and the PC102 being made available to customers in 1Q06. General sampling of the WinMax device is scheduled for Spring 2006.

The WinMax MAC solution, based on the same 0.13µm technology and architecture as the WinPath-2 family of processors from Wintegra, provides a complete 802.16e MAC, utilizing both software and hardware acceleration. Key hardware acceleration features of WinMax include: HCS (Header Check Sequence) acceleration, including CRC-8; payload CRC calculation for all payloads, including CRC-32; sophisticated Policer/Scheduler hardware accelerators; ARQ accelerators for high resolution hardware timestamps and ARQ sliding window acceleration; hardware synchronization support for the MAC/PHY interface; security and authentication engine, including AES-XCB, AES-CCM, 3xDES, HMAC-MD5 and SHA-1 encryption.

As with other WinPath products from Wintegra, the WinMax software will be available in both object and source code formats, enabling customers to use the MAC solution as a production-ready module or to create value-add modifications.
The picoChip PC6520 is the industry-standard basestation reference design for WiMAX, with more than 15 major licensees. WiMAX systems using picoChip are available from Airspan, Intel, Ericsson, Nortel, Marconi and a number of other manufacturers. It is being used in publicly declared deployments in Japan (Yozan), UK (Pipex) and Italy (Marconi and Italian Ministries). picoChip has a development partnership with Airspan for 802.16-2004, and the two companies joint reference design is in the process of being certified at CETECOM.

The company recently announced an extension of its products with the first solutions for 802.16e basestation and mobile stations, to make picoChip’s WiMAX portfolio the most complete available. The designs are compatible with all aspects of the WiMAX specifications and are fully upgradeable, whether for new versions of the standard or for advanced features such as active antenna systems (AAS) and multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) systems. All these software versions run on the picoChip PC102 processor, which is in volume production.