With plans to deliver the first fully upgradeable reference design for WiMAX base stations, Florida’s Airspan Networks, Inc. and Bath, England-based picoChip have entered into a strategic partnership. Called SoftMAX, it implements the current 802.16–2004 WiMAX standard with future support for mobility. The two partners have entered into an exclusive development and marketing agreement for the new SoftMAX.

It is a complete software-defined radio solution based on picoChip’s massively parallel digital signal processing technology and Airspan’s system design, software and hardware expertise. This technology is being used in Airspan’s commercial base stations.

According to the partners, telecommunications equipment manufacturers entering the emerging WiMAX infrastructure market can reduce cost and time to market by adopting SoftMAX. It provides a standards-compliant, interoperable solution including support for such additional features as diversity, space-time coding, a variety of profiles, adaptive antenna systems and MIMO.

The initial product is based on the 802.16-2004 standard for fixed and nomadic broadband wireless access systems. The software-defined architecture allows for a completely flexible upgrade path to future versions of the standards: in particular to the 802.16e version for mobile broadband access. This flexibility is especially important given that the 802.16e standard is not yet frozen and because of the critical need for interoperability testing.

Operators will also benefit from this architecture as it will allow them to undertake field software upgrades as the standards develop, avoiding the need for expensive hardware upgrade or replacement programs.

Caroline Gabriel, research director at Rethink Research Associates, commented: “Combining Airspan’s depth of ‘real-world’ field experience and systems software understanding with picoChip’s upgradeable architecture will deliver a very solid product. Until now, any WiMAX products have been CPE-focused, ignoring the distinct needs of infrastructure OEMs. This combination is the first true reference design for the base station. SoftMAX will meet the needs of manufacturers working on systems today, dramatically accelerating time-to-market and interoperability--while the flexibility and commitment to future-proofing make it especially important for those looking ahead to 802.16e.” Airspan developed the MAC and higher layer software, while picoChip is responsible for the PHY, the baseband processor and customer support. Additional software available from Airspan extends well beyond the MAC into services and network management. SoftMAX also includes a hardware reference design and schematics, needing only to be connected to a radio.