Texas Instruments and Azcom Technology Develop New 3G/4G Small Cell Base Station Platform, Offering Developers a Boost in Performance and Product Development Time

Joint platform delivers macro-class performance in a pico-class form factor

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Feb 14, 2011, 03:30 ET

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS -- Solidifying its commitment to the small cell market, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) in collaboration with Azcom Technology, a leading provider of services and solutions in the wireless communications domain, today announced the availability of a new small cell base station platform focused on 3G and 4G high speed data systems. Based on TI's KeyStone multicore architecture and industry leading TMS320C66x digital signal processor (DSP) core, the TMDXSCBP6616X supports multi-carrier HSPA+ systems as well as full-rate, 20MHz LTE systems using multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and advanced receiver algorithms.

Leveraging technology used in hundreds of carrier networks worldwide, TI and Azcom are delivering a platform capable of achieving macro-class performance in a pico-class form factor for small cell deployments. The new base station platform consists of the following technology from TI:

TCI6616 System-on-Chip (SoC) for PHY and Layer 2 processing that affords OEMs the ability to develop state-of-the-art base station solutions for all air interfaces from GSM to LTE;
C6A8167 Integra™ DSP+ARM® processor for Layer 3 processing;
GC5330 transmit/receive processor for digital radio front-end processing;
NaviLink™ 6.0 (NL5550) solution GPS for clock synchronization.

For RF development, the platform connects directly to TI's upcoming TSW3725 analog/RF platform, which is available separately.

"With the small cell market now poised to transform the wireless network topology, our new base station platform with Azcom serves as a great stepping stone for designers to stay ahead of the cost, time and performance curve," said Kathy Brown, manager of TI's wireless base station infrastructure business. "Leveraging our decade-long experience in the wireless infrastructure market, we know what it takes for developers to succeed, and there is no doubt that they will now be able to quickly ramp up to field trials for any and all small cell base station configurations."

"Small cells can go a long way in addressing critical issues facing operators, which is, how to satisfy ever increasing bandwidth demand while maintaining an adequate return on their investment," said Ajit Singh, managing director, Azcom Technology." The platform provides everything a vendor needs for a small cell solution."

Robust third-party ecosystem

Developers can leverage TI's extensive third party network for complete software products and services that support TI DSPs. Companies with supporting software to TI's small cell base station platform include:

Software Partners: Azcom Technology, Continuous Computing, mimoOn, Nash Technologies and Tata Elxsi;
Hardware Partners: Azcom Technology and Global Navigation Systems.

Availability

Available in 2Q11 from TI or Azcom Technology, the TMDXSCBP6616X is priced at $4,495. For further information or to pre-order, please contact [email protected] or [email protected]. Additionally, the small cell base station platform will soon be available with TI's recently announced TCI6618 SoC.

TI @ Mobile World Congress

While at MWC, visit TI at Booth 8A84 (Hall 8) to learn more about the latest communications infrastructure, analog, wireless and DLP news, and to check out a broad range of TI-based demos. For more information please visit www.ti.com/mwc2011.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through design, sales and manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries. For more information, go to www.ti.com.

About Azcom Technology

Azcom Technology provides a wide range of services and solutions for the LTE, UMTS, TD-SCDMA, GSM/GPRS/EDGE cellular systems. Azcom has very strong experience in baseband platform development, RF system design, testing and integration. These competences are highly complemented by our design service which provides hardware development together with related software stack, from low level firmware up to application layers. For more information, go to www.azcom.it.

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SOURCE Texas Instruments Incorporated