LTE Products
While many chip and reference design products are in the design and roadmap stage, some products have already been released, particularly those that share a common platform with WiMAX.
LTE products
ADI is in production with the AD9352 and AD9354 WiMAX transceivers, which can also be used in LTE designs. The company reports that it is researching LTE solutions now. PicoChip expects to have its reference design product available next year. For now, it is shipping the PC203 picoArray signal processor.
Linear Technology reports that a number of its products are currently in use in first-generation LTE basestation designs. These include the LT5557 downconverting active mixer and the LT5579 upconverting active mixer; the LT5575 I/Q demodulator; LT5570 and LT5581 RMS detector; wideband intermediate frequency (IF) amplifiers; wideband active filters; and high-speed analog to digital converters (ADCs).
No doubt, we will be hearing a lot about LTE as the standards evolve, are frozen and more products hit the market. The technical discussion is only just beginning, and upcoming technical conferences, such as next month's LTE: Towards Mobile Broadband conference in Dallas, TX, are likely to advance the conversation even more.
12/01/2008 12:01 AM EST by EE Times Janine Love
The long road to 4G wireless
LTE will become the first truly global standard for mobile data, with launches for data cards in 2010 and handsets in 2011.
Don't hold your breath waiting for the next wireless broadband technology. It will be a few more years before we have access to broadband Internet services that are truly wire-free. However, the development of Long Term Evolution (LTE), the evolving 4G technology for high-speed data access over cellular networks, will be under the gun in 2009.
Despite a host of uncertainties about the pace of rollout for this flavor of mobile broadband, IC vendors are busy getting their designs ready for this emerging 4G technology.
Players in the consumer electronics sector want to avoid the mistakes encountered during the rollout of 2.5G and 3G networks when interoperable handsets were not available in a timely fashion for the upgraded networks.
For LTE, the issue is more likely to be ensuring that LTE-capable devices are available for embedding into PCs and mobile computing devices rather than phones, since the initial emphasis is bound to be on high-speed data transfer rather than better and wider voice coverage. Terminal availability has too often been blamed for slow rollouts, due to endless options that have made the poor handset designers' and manufacturers' lives difficult.
This won't be easy since the standardization process for LTE has some way to go, even though the important Release 8 for the technology, being devised under the auspices of the 3GP standard group, is due to be finalized this month. But as the industry is well aware, this will not be the end of the story.
There is too much uncertainty regarding the frequency ranges at which LTE will operate--anywhere between 900 MHz to 2.6 MHz. Network topology is also a subject of debate among operators: Will it be targeted at hot-spots only? Will LTE be a rapid replacement for 2G or 3G? Will it be for data only, or data and voice from the outset?
For chip designers, this means the need for greater flexibility and compatibility. Why? LTE is not the only game in town for 4G; mobile WiMAX is slightly ahead of the game. Chip, customer premises equipment (CPE) and terminal designers will need to ensure a single solution for broadband wireless, deploying baseband and RF that support both environments.
We should not expect major LTE rollouts before 2010 for use with data cards and 2011 for handsets. The bottom line: LTE is specified to support multiple bands in both time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division, duplex (FDD) modes, and will evolve to be the first truly global standard for mobile data.
12/15/2008 12:01 AM EST by EETimes John Walko in Korean
LTE will become the first truly global standard for mobile data, with launches for data cards in 2010 and handsets in 2011.Don't hold your breath waiting for the next wireless broadband technology. It will be a few more years before we have access to broadband Internet services that are truly wire-free. However, the development of Long Term Evolution (LTE), the evolving 4G technology for high-speed data access over cellular networks, will be under the gun in 2009.
Despite a host of uncertainties about the pace of rollout for this flavor of mobile broadband, IC vendors are busy getting their designs ready for this emerging 4G technology.
Players in the consumer electronics sector want to avoid the mistakes encountered during the rollout of 2.5G and 3G networks when interoperable handsets were not available in a timely fashion for the upgraded networks.
For LTE, the issue is more likely to be ensuring that LTE-capable devices are available for embedding into PCs and mobile computing devices rather than phones, since the initial emphasis is bound to be on high-speed data transfer rather than better and wider voice coverage. Terminal availability has too often been blamed for slow rollouts, due to endless options that have made the poor handset designers' and manufacturers' lives difficult.
This won't be easy since the standardization process for LTE has some way to go, even though the important Release 8 for the technology, being devised under the auspices of the 3GP standard group, is due to be finalized this month. But as the industry is well aware, this will not be the end of the story.
There is too much uncertainty regarding the frequency ranges at which LTE will operate--anywhere between 900 MHz to 2.6 MHz. Network topology is also a subject of debate among operators: Will it be targeted at hot-spots only? Will LTE be a rapid replacement for 2G or 3G? Will it be for data only, or data and voice from the outset?
For chip designers, this means the need for greater flexibility and compatibility. Why? LTE is not the only game in town for 4G; mobile WiMAX is slightly ahead of the game. Chip, customer premises equipment (CPE) and terminal designers will need to ensure a single solution for broadband wireless, deploying baseband and RF that support both environments.
We should not expect major LTE rollouts before 2010 for use with data cards and 2011 for handsets. The bottom line: LTE is specified to support multiple bands in both time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division, duplex (FDD) modes, and will evolve to be the first truly global standard for mobile data.
12/15/2008 12:01 AM EST by EETimes John Walko in Korean
LTE mobile gateways break 100 Gb/s speeds
MANHASSET, NY — Ixia together with with Alcatel-Lucent announced the results of an LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC) test that broke the 100 Gb/s barrier for mobile gateways.
Alcatel-Lucent routers were stressed using Ixia's IxLoad application and Acceleron load modules and successfully passed multimedia traffic over simultaneous 80 Gb/s downstream and 20 Gb/s upstream links.
The scenario roughly equated to 1.5 million voice LTE channels or, inversely, more than 65,000 high-definition html-based H.264 video sessions running concurrently at aggregate speeds over 100 Gb/s.
"Ixia had the hardware and software that could accommodate the scalability we needed to validate our product with real world application traffic," said Kevin Macaluso, Vice President and General Manager of the Service Router product group within Alcatel-Lucent, in a statement.
According to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), the number of mobile operators committed to deploying LTE advanced mobile broadband systems has more than doubled in the past year.
With 64 operators working to implement LTE in 31 countries, GSA expects that up to 22 networks will be in commercial service by the end of 2010.
The Economist recently predicted that mobile Internet users are expected to surpass fixed Internet users in 2011.
Mobile data traffic in the coming years will reach volumes thousands of times higher than previously seen in wireless networks, imposing significant challenges on both the radio access network (RAN) and EPC in LTE mobile broadband rollouts, according ot Ixia.
"LTE is about massive increase of video and data traffic which demands massive throughput in the Evolved Packet Core," said Victor Alston, Senior Vice President, Product Development at Ixia.
04/22/2010 9:13 AM EDT by EE Times Nicolas Mokhoff
MANHASSET, NY — Ixia together with with Alcatel-Lucent announced the results of an LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC) test that broke the 100 Gb/s barrier for mobile gateways.
Alcatel-Lucent routers were stressed using Ixia's IxLoad application and Acceleron load modules and successfully passed multimedia traffic over simultaneous 80 Gb/s downstream and 20 Gb/s upstream links.
The scenario roughly equated to 1.5 million voice LTE channels or, inversely, more than 65,000 high-definition html-based H.264 video sessions running concurrently at aggregate speeds over 100 Gb/s.
"Ixia had the hardware and software that could accommodate the scalability we needed to validate our product with real world application traffic," said Kevin Macaluso, Vice President and General Manager of the Service Router product group within Alcatel-Lucent, in a statement.
According to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), the number of mobile operators committed to deploying LTE advanced mobile broadband systems has more than doubled in the past year.
With 64 operators working to implement LTE in 31 countries, GSA expects that up to 22 networks will be in commercial service by the end of 2010.
The Economist recently predicted that mobile Internet users are expected to surpass fixed Internet users in 2011.
Mobile data traffic in the coming years will reach volumes thousands of times higher than previously seen in wireless networks, imposing significant challenges on both the radio access network (RAN) and EPC in LTE mobile broadband rollouts, according ot Ixia.
"LTE is about massive increase of video and data traffic which demands massive throughput in the Evolved Packet Core," said Victor Alston, Senior Vice President, Product Development at Ixia.
04/22/2010 9:13 AM EDT by EE Times Nicolas Mokhoff
So, who has LTE solutions for handsets?
03/22/2010 9:04 AM EDT by EE Times Junko Yoshida
As was the case with last month's World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, expect to find LTE everywhere at the CTIA. But don't hold your breath for commercial LTE chip solutions for mobile handsets -- anytime soon.
Forward Concept's Strauss said, "Dozens of companies claim to have LTE chips, but upon closer inspection, you find that they are 'almost' solutions."
Strauss said he does not expect LTE chips for handsets before late 2012. "That's because the first rollouts are for data only, meaning for USB data dongles and PC cards," he said.
Almost all of LTE solutions are FPGA implementations of their upcoming LTE-only product (except for Icera Semiconductor), targeted only for dongles and modules.
The Linley Group's Linley Gwennap agreed. After the Mobile World Congress last month, he said, "Not counting companies like Samsung, LG, and NTT DoCoMo that have demonstrated LTE technology but are not planning to sell it commercially, the vendors that are sampling working LTE silicon right now are Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, and Altair," Gwennap observed. "These initial solutions are single-chip LTE basebands that require an external RF chip. In most cases, additional chips are needed for compatibility with 2G/3G networks."
Open core
From a licensable IP standpoint, Strauss said that there are LTE terminal solutions (in FPGA form), which have been demonstrated by CEVA and Tensilica (both using mimoOn PHY software), Blue Wonder Communications (using 4M Wireless' LTE PHY), and Cognovo (an ARM spinout staffed by ex-TTPCom 3G stack experts).
Meanwhile, Strauss singled out Icera Semiconductor as the only company that has publicly demonstrated both LTE and 3G on their current product. "They simply re-flashed one of its OEM customer's HSPA/5MHz dongles to run the LTE stack," he said. It's "a true illustration of a software-defined modem," as it is to deliver multimode LTE technology in software at no additional silicon cost.
Forward Concept's Strauss said, "Dozens of companies claim to have LTE chips, but upon closer inspection, you find that they are 'almost' solutions."
Strauss said he does not expect LTE chips for handsets before late 2012. "That's because the first rollouts are for data only, meaning for USB data dongles and PC cards," he said.
Almost all of LTE solutions are FPGA implementations of their upcoming LTE-only product (except for Icera Semiconductor), targeted only for dongles and modules.
The Linley Group's Linley Gwennap agreed. After the Mobile World Congress last month, he said, "Not counting companies like Samsung, LG, and NTT DoCoMo that have demonstrated LTE technology but are not planning to sell it commercially, the vendors that are sampling working LTE silicon right now are Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, and Altair," Gwennap observed. "These initial solutions are single-chip LTE basebands that require an external RF chip. In most cases, additional chips are needed for compatibility with 2G/3G networks."
Open core
From a licensable IP standpoint, Strauss said that there are LTE terminal solutions (in FPGA form), which have been demonstrated by CEVA and Tensilica (both using mimoOn PHY software), Blue Wonder Communications (using 4M Wireless' LTE PHY), and Cognovo (an ARM spinout staffed by ex-TTPCom 3G stack experts).
Meanwhile, Strauss singled out Icera Semiconductor as the only company that has publicly demonstrated both LTE and 3G on their current product. "They simply re-flashed one of its OEM customer's HSPA/5MHz dongles to run the LTE stack," he said. It's "a true illustration of a software-defined modem," as it is to deliver multimode LTE technology in software at no additional silicon cost.
CEVA, too, is going for a similar SDR option. The difference is, said Wertheizer, "Icera's solution is not based on an open core." As CEVA being a DSP core IP company, he added, "We are the only choice" allowing semiconductor companies to go for SDR by using an open core and commercially available tools.
The truth is that all 3G basebands are programmable . . . albeit only by vendors themselves, said Strauss. "The key to CEVA's future success is to continue expanding their ecosystem of development tools and third-party support, mostly software," he added.
CEVA claims that CEVA-X cores are picking up interest among more chip vendors, as WiMax houses are heading to LTE. Sequans, the number two WiMax terminal chip vendor, last year announced that it is going with CEVA-X cores for LTE. Strauss said that Beceem, the number one in WiMAX terminal chips last year, told him that they were going with CEVA-X cores for their upcoming LTE product.
The truth is that all 3G basebands are programmable . . . albeit only by vendors themselves, said Strauss. "The key to CEVA's future success is to continue expanding their ecosystem of development tools and third-party support, mostly software," he added.
CEVA claims that CEVA-X cores are picking up interest among more chip vendors, as WiMax houses are heading to LTE. Sequans, the number two WiMax terminal chip vendor, last year announced that it is going with CEVA-X cores for LTE. Strauss said that Beceem, the number one in WiMAX terminal chips last year, told him that they were going with CEVA-X cores for their upcoming LTE product.
03/22/2010 9:04 AM EDT by EE Times Junko Yoshida
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