Airspan Networks Inc (fka AIRO)

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NetLogic Microsystems Rolls-Out OP6100 Family of Digital Front End Processors for 3G/4G Base Stations
http://4g-wirelessevolution.tmcnet.com/topics/4g-wirelessevolution/articles/166455-netlogic-microsystems-rolls-out-op6100-family-digital-front.htm
April 20, 2011
By Jayashree Adkoli

An exponential growth in mobile data traffic coupled with a scarcity in global spectrum are forcing service providers and operators to push the limits on capacity and throughput. Consequently, demand for next-generation base stations that can support wider bandwidth, more signal channels and more protocols (2G/3G/4G) in each band has increased.

As a response, semiconductor solutions provider NetLogic Microsystems, Inc. has rolled-out the industry’s widest bandwidth Digital Front End (DFE) processors, the OP6100 family, for 3G and 4G/LTE (News - Alert) base stations.

The new OP6100 family of DFE processors can deliver 65MHz of occupied bandwidth, 145MHz of total bandwidth and 325MHz of pre-distortion bandwidth for next-generation 3G and 4G/LTE base stations.

NetLogic (News - Alert) Microsystems’ Intelligent Self-Adaptive DFE technology facilitates base stations to calibrate in real-time to real-world environments and variations. Consequently, this helps in accelerating as well as enhancing the manageability of LTE developments for Tier One original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

The new OP6100 family of DFE processors also feature remote radio heads (RRUs) and distributed antenna systems (DAS). In addition, the DFE technology incorporated allows the family to represent more than 220 percent increase in bandwidth over competing available merchant DFE solutions, and at a fraction of the cost and power of FPGA-based solutions.

Supporting multiple standards and multiple signals in the same wide bandwidth, the new OP6100 DFE processor family also supports non-contiguous bands.

NetLogic Microsystems’ (News - Alert) Intelligent Self-Adaptive DFE technology incorporated into the new OP6100 DFE processor family help it to deliver the industry’s widest signal bandwidth. It also provides the industry’s highest spectrum efficiency through the simultaneous processing of multiple signal channels per band, as well as the multi-protocol co-existence of 4G LTE, 3G and 2G standards.

The OP6100 DFE processor family’s ability to support multiple signals and multiple protocols in a significantly wider bandwidth spectrum along with the unique ability to span over non-contiguous bands helps service providers to upgrade the performance and functionality of existing base stations without the time and costs associated with deploying new base stations or antennas.

In addition, the OP6100 DFE processor family significantly improves the cost and power profiles of next-generation base stations by eliminating the need for costly FPGA devices and conventional DFE solutions.

Moreover, the OP6100 DFE processor family enables unprecedented scalability in DFE processing for OEMs across multiple platforms and base station form factors due to the support for broadest range of Doherty, Asymmetric Doherty and Envelope-Tracking power amplifiers in LDMOS, GaN and GaAs technologies.

Furthermore, the new OP6100 DFE processor family can provide up to 80 percent better transmit power efficiency over competing solutions. This feature facilitates OEMs to attain higher data rates at much lower transmit power levels.

In the recent news, NetLogic Microsystems has boosted Airspan's (News - Alert) 4G LTE base stations. In addition, the company has also tapped-out next-generation silicon in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (News - Alert) Company (TSMC)’s advanced 28nm process.