Since base station manufacturers are evaluating the new standard, TI haspartnered with system developers MCS and STx to offer ATCA/AMC-based development platforms that can dramatically reduce the OEMs time to market. These platforms allow developers to quickly assemble a hardware test platform, mirroring a typical system including DSPs, a general-purpose processor (GPP), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Using an advanced mezzanine card (AMC) approach, separate cards with these devices can be easily connected and development can start before any final hardware decisions are made. Both the TCI6482 and TCI6487 baseband processors are available on AMC development cards, TI said.

While TMS320TCI6482 (TCI6482) is a 1 GHz very long instruction word (VLIW)-based programmable DSP for wireless base stations, TMS320TCI6487 is a 3-core, 3 GHz processor with the capacity to support a complete 10 MHz OFDMA sector on a single chip.

The TCI6482 has the latest TMS320C64x+ DSP core, which can perform up to eight 32-bit instructions during every cycle (cycle time is 1 ns). In addition to the 1 GHz performance of the basic architecture, the TCI6482 includes new extensions that facilitate code size reduction and processes complex arithmetic and bit manipulation functions across wireless standards.

Likewise, TMS320TCI6487 (TCI6487) device is a high-performance DSP designed specifically for wireless infrastructure baseband applications. With a high level of functional integration and a high-channel density supported on a single device, the TCI6487 DSP offers a modular and scalable design with a small footprint. Having rendered baseband solutions for UMTS, TDSCDMA, WiMAX and cdma2000 applications, the company is now leveraging the capabilities of TCI6487 DSP for LTE application. Because it offers a software-programmable solution and allows for the reuse of existing C64x and C64x+ DSP code, it is expected to accelerate the development of LTE baseband solutions. Advanced features such as MIMO, beam-forming and parallel interface cancellation (PIC) can be easily supported without the need for any hardware redesign.

“The broadband-class data rates of LTE will require tremendous performance in a wireless infrastructure framework to support the new customer applications enabled by these networks,” said Arnon Friedmann, software product manager for TI's communications infrastructure group. “The early development ecosystem, will help carriers and OEMs formulate the most cost-effective path toward LTE.”

One such ecosystem partner is Axis Network Technology, a U.K.-based wireless technology business focused on the development of multichannel OFDM digital radio and RF solutions for next-generation MIMO and AAS wireless systems. Axis is leveraging its current WiMAX platform for new LTE developments.

As an active participant in the development of the LTE standard, TI said it can quickly adapt and modify the software library to match any changes or new developments. In addition, since LTE is an OFDM-based system, TI is able to leverage more than 20 years of experience in both digital subscriber line (DSL) and previous OFDM-based wireless developments. According to TI, the first release of the LTE software package will be available at the end of the second quarter. The developer said that it will be updated throughout the year as the standard moves toward ratification.

Meanwhile, using TI DSPs, Mercury Computer Systems has readied a high-performance AMC card for next-generation base station development. Called Ensemble MTI-203 AMC, it combines three TCI6482 DSPs and a Xilinx FPGA node to support both LTE and WiMAX base station applications. According to Mercury Computer, combined DSP and FPGA enables optimal application partitioning. Furthermore, said the supplier, the card enables all the physical layer (PHY) baseband processing required for a 20 MHz, time-division duplex (TDD), multi-antenna solution with smart antenna MIMO enabled.

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