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Mobile WiMAX Basestations |
Wintegra Launches Market
Leading Silicon and Software Solution for Mobile WiMAX Basestations
Other topics: WiMAX Public Safety
Network, Advanced WiFi Network,
WiMAX Channel Emulator,
WiMAX Hospitality Industry
BUSINESS WIRE
April 23, 2007
New WinMax Family is First to Offer Single Chip Processors and Software
for Flexible MAC and Transport Layer Performance in 802.16e Basestations
Austin, TX -- Wintegra™, the fabless semiconductor company enabling
the next generation of access networks, has announced today the launch
of WinMax, a family of single chip processors and associated software
for WiMAX basestation (BTS) applications. The WinMax family provides an
integrated silicon and software solution for the MAC (Media Access
Control) and transport functions of mobile WiMAX basestations, and
offers a common architecture that is scalable from cost-effective
picostations up to multi-sector macro basestations supporting advanced
features such as adaptive antenna system (AAS) and MIMO. The WinMAX
family has market leading subscriber density, multiple sector support
and available performance for rapidly evolving 802.16e WiMAX
basestations. |
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With its innovative
features, WinMax can provide a number of advantages to the WiMAX BTS
designer over other approaches that may use ASICs, FPGAs or RISC
processors. WinMax provides a solution that is cost-competitive with
ASICs, yet offers the unique benefit of full programmability, field
upgradeability (to meet evolving standards), and a full family of
pin-compatible, SW compatible parts.
Data path and control path implementation mean that the MAC and other
components are implemented as a set of building blocks, which can be
customized by the designer to meet the demand for advanced features such
as AAS, MIMO and subchannel diversity requirements. This flexibility
extends to future enhancements and standards such as wav-2, 16j relay
stations, 16h for unlicensed frequency bands and the 16m next generation
mobile network standard.
The WinMax system is a true software-based solution executed on the
WinMax Access Packet Processor. The WinMax processor itself is based on
the recently introduced WinPath2 family of processors, which utilizes
the same data path software (DPS) and WDDI API software architecture as
the company’s successful WinPath1 processors. Using the new processors,
basestation designers will be able to realize any specific feature
within the WinMax system without the need for a new system-on-chip (SoC)
revision. Indeed customers have been developing software for their
systems using a software-compatible WinPath device for over a year now.
Some customers have already begun full mobility field trials using the
Wintegra solution.
The features, performance and power characteristics of the WinMax
devices have been specifically tailored to the needs of the rapidly
expanding WiMAX market. WinMax features a flexible datapath engine
architecture based on Symmetric Multi Thread Processor (SMTP)
technology. It offers market leading density in terms of the number of
sectors and subscribers per sector that can be supported. UP to 4 MAC
instances can be accommodated on a single part and allows flexibility
and future-proofing of basestation designs. The single chip approach, in
combination with a common software architecture, allows the
implementation of either integrated or separate transport interfaces.
Integrated 10/100 and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces are provided, allowing
the same software and hardware architecture to be extended across
multiple products in a family that can encompass macro, micro and pico
BTS versions.
A flexible interface to PHYs has been developed, which allows different
PHY technologies and vendors to be supported. A previously announced
reference design with picoChip gives manufacturers the opportunity to
develop their product using an already working reference BTS
implementation.
Colin Alexander, Director of Wireless Marketing at Wintegra, commented,
“Because the WiMAX standard is still evolving, designers need a flexible
platform to meet a wide range of needs in terms of functionality and
performance. WinMax has been targeted at meeting this need, and is also
cost effective in terms of both Bill of Materials (BOM) and development.
We have customer designs where WinMax has removed between 5 and 7 other
devices from the customers’ alternative designs. In addition, our
silicon architecture and “SMTP superiority” offers scheduling and
features beyond any other device. Our parallelism offers unique
advantages other devices cannot provide. We intend to support the WinMAX
system with a series of reference platforms that will reduce development
time and thus improve time-to-market,” he continued.
Integral to the WinMax concept is a software suite of DPS modules that
provide the user with a suite of low level (typically Layer 2 - 4)
protocol and interworking implementations. DPS executes on a series of
custom-designed RISC processor cores – collectively called WinComm – and
are accessible from the on-chip host processor through a software API
called the WinPath Device Driver Interface (WDDI). This architecture
allows the control and data path functions to be integrated on the same
device, with the host device handling termination and management
functions, and the WinComm engine handling the switching, interworking,
or backplane data path functions from the line interface.
The software features on the programmable engines and parallel hardware
provide support for common WiMAX tasks, as well as accelerators to
optimize performance. A number of optional blocks are supported by the
Wintegra MAC layer, including: multiple programmable power-saving
options, Payload Header Suppression (PHS), with 256 rules per channel
identifier; scheduling and shaping (supporting all five traffic classes
for both uplink and downlink); multiple priority class (supporting eight
classes of service priority queue per connection); policing; security
sublayer; multi-zone (support for multi-block – both FDD and TDD –
configuration for the OFDMA frame builder, and dynamic channel
assignment for the appropriate block); and multicast/bicasting (for
handover).
Additional features include support for multiple MAC entities, allowing
multiple sector support on the same device as well as rapid channel
mapping/handover between the entities, and deep packet classification of
Layer 4 and above – for QoS, PHS and scheduling.
WinMax devices and software are in production and shipping today.
About Wintegra, Inc.
Wintegra is a leading provider of access processing semiconductors
enabling the delivery of new services for the evolving communications
network infrastructure. Its access processors and networking software
provide the essential intelligence and upgradeability for infrastructure
equipment to support the emerging networks based on the convergence of
voice, video, data and wireless services. Wintegra-based solutions are
available for a wide range of communication platforms such as wireless
infrastructure, digital subscriber line, or DSL, Multi-service Access,
voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, and access routers and are used
by many of the leading telecom and networking equipment manufacturers
worldwide. More information is available at www.wintegra.com. |
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