picoChip and Continuous Computing are joining forces to develop a Long Term Evolution (LTE) femtocell and picocell reference platform that extends from a hardware reference design and physical layer implementation (PHY) all the way up through Layer 2 and Layer 3 LTE protocols.
The companies say the platform will allow equipment providers to quickly get to market with a variety of small form factor LTE products, including femtocell and picocell base stations. They add smaller eNodeB products, such as those based on the MicroTCA form factor, are expected to be important for LTE deployments.
Initially, Continuous Computing will integrate its Trillium LTE-Uu, S1AP, and X2AP protocol stacks with picoChip's PC8608 and PC8609 PHY software reference designs running on the picoChip PC7608 hardware platform.
This will offer 10MHz channel bandwidths and thus support both time-division duplex (TDD) and frequency-division duplex (FDD) modes of operation – and aggregate throughout performance of up to 86Mbit/s, that, the companies say, is a four-fold improvement over today's top data rates of 21Mbit/s with enhanced High Speed Packet Access (HSPA+).
“The expansion of our collaboration with Continuous Computing on the LTE femtocell and picocell reference design is reaffirmation of our commitment to LTE. In light of our close and successful HSPA femtocell association, Continuous Computing was the obvious choice of partner in bringing our LTE offerings to market quickly and cost-effectively,” said Nigel Toon, president and CEO at picoChip (Bath, England).
Continuous Computing and picoChip already offer an integrated femtocell reference solution with complete protocol stacks.
Separately, Continuous Computing said its Trillium LTE software now supports the latest March 2009 3GPP E-UTRA LTE specifications.
via Groups combine for high level protocol LTE ref designs – EETimes.
