New SoftCell Chip Set from Analog Devices Enables Smaller, More Powerful Base Stations for Wireless Systems
PR Newswire - February 08, 1999 10:20
Development Represents Radical Shift in Radio Architecture
Achieves Increased Operator Flexibility, Wider Coverage and Enhanced
Quality of Service for Public Wireless Networks and Wireless Offices
NORWOOD, Mass., Feb. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Analog Devices, Inc. (NYSE: ADI) today announced the SoftCell(TM) Multicarrier Transceiver Chip set, which allows smaller, more powerful base stations to be optimized for cellular/PCS, Wireless Local Loop (WLL), Micro/Pico Cell, and Smart Antenna systems. SoftCell is a functionally complete end-to-end,
IF-to-digital transceiver chip set that enables true "software radios"
to be deployed for wireless infrastructure applications.
ADI's SoftCell chipset addresses key issues for wireless operators
including the cost of coverage, flexibility and size, as well as quality of service. Base stations containing the SoftCell chip set will be easy to modify in terms of adding services, additional channels, and changing wireless standards incrementally. In effect, operators will have the ability to use and move between any air interface standard (e.g., GSM, PHS, D-AMPS), deploy a higher number of channels and offer frequency plans with greater efficiency. The new architecture also eliminates redundant channel radios for both transmitters and receivers.
The SoftCell chip set is optimized for four RF carrier channels and is
easily expandable. The solution enables equipment manufacturers to
create highly scalable multicarrier, multi-mode base stations at a
fraction of the cost of traditional multi-channel base stations.
Implementing a single 4-channel receiver with SoftCell results in a 36
percent savings, with the cost per channel savings increasing
dramatically for higher channel designs. For example, operators can
realize a 2:1, or 60 percent savings, when implementing the SoftCell
solution in a 10-carrier base station.
"At Analog Devices, we are committed to developing leading-edge silicon solutions to help the wireless industry create smaller, yet more powerful base stations in order to quickly expand the global wireless infrastructure," said Thomas Gratzek, Product Line Director for Analog Devices' Digital Radio Group. "The SoftCell chip set brings us significantly closer to reaching this goal, and positions us as a
leading provider of next-generation infrastructure technology for
third-generation wireless systems."
The decrease in size and cost savings associated with SoftCell means
base stations can be deployed in higher numbers and in tighter
locations. The result is better coverage, better quality, and fewer busy signals for users. The deployment capability also makes the SoftCell chip set well-suited for wireless office applications. In addition, the "software radio" technology implemented in the chip set enables new applications such as Smart Antenna or phased-array antenna services that enable power efficiencies and cost savings, and small "picocell" installations for additional coverage capacity and in-building wireless systems.
The SoftCell chip set consists of ADI's AD6644 14-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), AD6624 quad digital receive signal processor, AD9754 TxDAC(R) 14-bit digital-to-analog converter and AD6622 quad digital transmit signal processor. The solution leverages the benefits of digital signal processors to enable channel equalization, error correction and decoding with greater flexibility and efficiencies. This new chip set complements ADI's TigerSHARC(TM) digital signal processor (DSP) engine as an optimal option, also in development.
The TigerSHARC DSP is a ground breaking processor optimized for
communications applications capable of performing 2 billion 16-bit
multiply/accumulates per second at 250 MHz. Additionally, the TigerSHARC is unique in its ability to support 8-, 16-, and 32-bit word sizes on a single chip. Modulation/demodulation, channel encode/decoding, and other radio functions can be multiplexed to support multiple carriers in a single DSP.
SoftCell complements ADI's recently introduced AD6600 diversity receiver chip set; the AD6600 addresses applications where a multicarrier architecture is still not feasible but allows direct IF sampling of signals at frequencies up to 250 MHz. Configured with the appropriate digital receiver signal processor, the AD6600 can address a variety of air interface standards, including GSM Macrocell.
The AD6644 will be available for general sampling in April with
production quantities available by the end of 1999. The AD6622 is
sampling now with production slated for June '99. The AD6624 is an
extension of ADI's popular AD6620 single-channel RSP, which may be used for prototype developments while awaiting samples available in the Fall of 99. The AD9754 TxDAC has just been released, with parts available from stock. For more information about SoftCell chip set components, visit analog.com Infolink: ad6644.
About Analog Devices
With fiscal 1998 sales of $1.23 billion, Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) is a leading manufacturer of precision high-performance integrated circuits used in analog and digital signal processing applications. Headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts, the company employs approximately 7,200 people worldwide and has manufacturing facilities in Massachusetts, California, North Carolina, Ireland, the Philippines and Taiwan.
SoftCell is a trademark of Analog Devices, Inc.
TxDAC and SHARC are registered trademarks of Analog Devices, Inc.
Analog Devices' SoftCell(TM) Technology Backgrounder
Classic base station architectures require a complete transceiver for
every RF carrier processed (from 4 to 80 channels for digital and analog systems respectively). These radios must be multiplied for diversity. It is easy to see why base station electronics consume so much space, power, and cost. The beauty of a multi-carrier software radio is the elimination of redundant radios in favor of a single, high-performance radio per antenna, where each RF carrier is processed in the digital domain. Deployment of true software radios has been limited by the performance of analog-to-digital converters (ADC) which must digitize the enormous dynamic range demanded in a spectrum composed of multiple carriers, blockers, and adjacent channel interference.
Multi-carrier transmitters have similar challenges to meet the
performance demands of the newest air interface specifications.
Digital-to-analog converters (DAC) and multi-carrier-amplifiers (MCPA)
must preserve the spectrum of several digitally generated carriers
without corruption or spurious signal generation in adjacent channels.
The AD9754 is a 14-bit DAC optimized to accurately convert multiple
carriers to a single IF frequency. The AD9754 is the latest in ADI's
TxDAC(R) family of high-performance converters.
About The SoftCell Multi-Carrier Chip Set
The heart of ADI's SoftCell chip set is the AD6644, a 14-bit, 80-MSPS
ADC that provides up to 100 dB of dynamic range and 77 dB
signal-to-noise ratio. This provides the receiver performance needed to implement a multi-carrier digitizing radio for many applications.
Shifting the channel tuning, filtering, and demodulation to the digital domain allows the flexibility to support different air interface standards, number of channels, and frequency plans with a single radio design.
Following the ADC, a digital receive signal processor (RSP) performs the channel tuning, filtering, and decimation required to provide baseband I and Q signals to a digital Signal Processor (DSP). The AD6624 is an 80 MSPS Quad Digital RSP being developed to support GSM, IS136, and other narrow-band standards. The AD6624's four channels are independently programmable to change air interface characteristics on demand. It is a simple matter to add AD6624s in parallel for additional channel capacity. The AD6624 can also be configured to support EDGE extensions of GSM and IS136.
The AD6622 is a four channel Digital Transmit Signal Processor that
takes baseband I and Q inputs from a DSP and provides all the signal
processing functions required to drive the AD9754 DAC. Each independent channel can be programmed to provide the desired channel filtering for most air interface standards. The AD6622 supports IS95 and WBCDMA standards and can be daisy chained to combine an arbitrary number of channels onto a single 18-bit digital output.
SOURCE Analog Devices, Inc.
/NOTE TO EDITORS:
YOUR READERS SHOULD CONTACT:
Analog Devices, Inc.
Ray Stata Technology Center
804 Woburn Street
Wilmington, MA 01887
Tel: 800-ANALOGD (800-262-5643)
781-937-1428
Fax: 781-937-1021/
/CONTACT: Dave Jackson of Analog Devices, Inc., 781-461-3136, or fax,
781-461-4241, or david-b.jackson@analog.com; Laura Stadler,
212-704-8127, or
laura_stadler@edelman.com, or Ephraim Cohen, 212-704-8103, or
ecohen@edelman.com, both of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, or fax,
212-768-1027, for Analog Devices, Inc./
/Web site: analog.com
(ADI)
I have been asked by several fellow investors to give a little background on Alex. here goes:
dspace.dial.pipex.com
Quintek becomes System Integrator of Alex SHARC products
1st December 1996 --
Quintek Ltd, the Bristol-based parallel computing company, has signed an agreement with Alex Computer Systems Inc. of Ithaca, NY to become a
systems integrator of its range of SHARC based boards and modules,
specifically targeting Industrial OEM's and Systems Builders.
Commenting on the agreement, Pat Mills, Quintek's Managing Director,
said: "We have been working extensively in parallel processing
applications for a number of years now with an extensive global customer base using our products. It is important that we are always in a position to offer competitive price/performance solutions to support the growing needs of our existing customers and address the needs of new ones. In reviewing our future strategy we could see a tremendous benefit in bringing the Alex range of SHARC based products into our systems integration activities to position Quintek as the supplier of choice for our chosen markets."
Graham Nice, Director of European Sales for Alex Computer Systems, went on to say: "By providing a full range of motherboards, computer modules and application-specific modules based on the SHARCPAC standard, we are able to offer Quintek the ability to build systems quickly without significant investment in hardware and software development. This enables Quintek to maintain its leadership position and react quickly to future customer requirements and new market opportunities. I am extremely enthusiastic about this relationship and look forward to rapid growth for both companies in this sector of the market."
Quintek Ltd was formed in 1985 to exploit revolutionary transputer
technology developed by Inmos. Harnessing its power has made a great
impact on the PC market throughout the world.
Quintek has established a reputation for the performance and quality of its products and is recognised as a market leader in bringing transputer technology to image processing applications.
Company headquarters are in Bristol, England.
Alex Computer Systems, the world's leading supplier of SHARC based
products for the embedded and parallel systems market, is the USA
subsidiary of Alex Informatics, a privately held company acknowledged as Canada's fastest growing company (Profit magazine - June 1995) founded in 1988. Alex Computer Systems develops and markets parallel computer hardware, software development tools and turnkey application systems.
----------
SHARC DSP Development Kit
15th December 1996 --
Quintek Ltd, the Bristol-based parallel computing company, are pleased
to announce their first promotion of SHARC based products since signing as an Alex Systems Integrator at the beginning of December.
'SHARC DSP DEVELOPMENT KIT'
Comprising PCI motherboard with two on-board SHARC processors, the
development kit comes with: C Compiler, Assembler, Linker, Simulator and 'Apex-Lite' comprehensive programming environment.
This 240 MFLOP kit is an excellent introduction to SHARC DSP, and is
fully supported by Quintek Ltd. Unlike many development kits for other
processors, this one can be used as the basis for a larger parallel
system at a later date. Customers investing in the development kit can
continue to expand the processing power of their system.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
SHARC PCI MOTHERBOARD
The 'SHARC DSP DEVELOPMENT KIT' comes complete with PCI motherboard
configured with two 120MFLOP Analogue Devices ADSP-2106 x SHARC
Processors. These have an on-board capability to further integrate 16
processors using two SHARCPAC module sites.
The two on-board SHARC processors have up to 3mbytes of external 48-bit zero-wait-state SRAM each. The PCI host has access to both internal and external memory.
To maximise systems performance all inter-processor communication takes place via the SHARC's six 40Mbyte/sec link ports, thus removing the bottleneck of using the PCI bus for all I/O communications.
FUTURE EXPANSION
For customers wishing to expand the 'SHARC DSP DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM' a
total of 18 SHARC communication links are taken off the board, allowing large parallel networks to be configured with a board-to-board bandwidth of over 700 Mbytes/sec.
APEX-Lite
APEX-Lite is included in the 'SHARC DSP DEVELOPMENT KIT' and is a
comprehensive programming environment supporting distributed processing using any number of SHARC processors.
APEX-Lite offers basic functionality, such as the loading, downloading, and execution of parallel programs on a multi-node SHARC network. The central focus of APEX-Lite is to make the unique features of the SHARC processor available to the user in an easy-to-use manner.
------------
A Professional SHARC-Application Development Toolset
21st May 1997 -- APEX-Pro
The new APEX-Pro professional SHARC-application development tools allow users to quickly and easily develop, optimise, and maintain parallel applications targeted at SHARC networks of arbitrary size and
complexity. Tools are provided to support every aspect of parallel
application development on the SHARC including a comprehensive set of
high-level communication utilities (APEX-Comms), a customisable,
multi-threaded, asynchronous host-interface (APEX-Host), plus a number
of advanced visual utilities for system configuration, monitoring and
diagnostics. Performance features include:
€Efficient bi-directional link port drivers,
€Asynchronous, link-port based packet-routing utilities,
€Efficient packet-based memory management system,
€Parallel data ³channels² via dead-lock-free virtual circuits,
€Remote procedure call (RPC) capabilities,
€Visual network configuration and diagnostic tools,
€Customisable, multi-threaded, asynchronous host server,
€Host-side SHARC library allowing Windows GUI applications easy access
to the embedded SHARC system.
Bi-directional link port drivers can be used as a means for buffered,
asynchronous communication between nearest neighbour processors.
On top of the link-port driver mechanism resides the packet routing
subsystem. Packet routing provides a means for communicating data
between processors without a direct physical connection. The SHARC¹s DMA engines allow the data to be routed through the intermediate processors with a minimal interruption in the background processing.
Another high-level service is the ³Channel². A channel is a sequential
flow of data from one processor to another over a predetermined virtual circuit. Data can be written to the channel without regard for
packetisation. Flow control is implemented through an efficient system
of overlapped acknowledge packets. This guarantees that the system will operate at maximum efficiency, without deadlock, no matter how much traffic the network is carrying.
APEX-Pro also includes an advanced host-interface, which allows for
bi-directional, asynchronous transactions between the host computer and the embedded SHARC system. As in the APEX-Lite software package, a full ANSI/POSIX I/O interface is supported from the root processor. Through the use of the advanced communication utilities in the APEX-Comms module however, APEX-Pro is able to offer access to host I/O functions from any processor in the network.
APEX-Pro also offers a number of advanced visual tools that streamline
application development and system diagnostics and configuration. A
thorough test of all of the connected link ports and external memory
banks is also run to determine the performance of the external memory
banks and the link port transfer reliability.
The APEX-Pro package is completely compatible with all of the Analog
Devices software development tools for the SHARC processor. The APEX
software packages provide the user with the necessary extensions to the generic ADI tools to develop and maintain efficient C-based code for distributed memory SHARC networks of arbitrary size and complexity. The addition of the APEX-Pro toolkit to the Alex Computer Systems SHARC product link allows Alex to offer the most advanced parallel software development environment in the SHARC DSP business.
-----------------------------------------------------------
DERA Fast Image-Processing System
17th August 1998 --
Quintek Ltd, the Bristol-based Systems Integrators of SHARC hardware,
have successfully installed an multiple-SHARC processor system and DALSA CA-D1 Digital camera at the DERA site at Malvern.
The application requires the capturing of real-time images at between
800 and 1500 frames per second from a laser using the DALSA CA-D1
digital camera. The images are divided into strips and transmitted as
fast as possible to a multi-SHARC processing board and thresholded to
identify the highlights.
Whilst many companies claim to interface SHARC networks to digital
cameras in real-time, Quintek proved to be the only company actually
able to demonstrate this capability, and prepared to take a commercial
view on the cost of integration.
Clare Anning, Commercial Manager for Quintek Ltd said: "Many suppliers
will have been put off doing this integration for the customer because
of lack of internal manpower and internal technical capability. Even if alternative suppliers can actually do the work the price charged to the customer is prohibitive and the project-cost is deemed too high. Quintek took the view that the size of the overall order together with the possibility of repeat business made the cost of integration worth
while."
Since 1985 we have built-up quite a considerable amount of knowledge in certain key areas. Many people will know us as designers and
manufacturers of Image Processing hardware - which we still do. In
addition we have become Specialist Systems Integrators for the Spectrum Signal Processing range of SHARC hardware and software, and have many customers now using the Spectrum FPGA SHARCPAC modules. The interface of the DALSA digital camera to the Spectrum SHARC system using the FPGA SHARCPAC module brings all the facets of our expertise together in one project which is always satisfying."
The DALSA CA-D1 Digital camera was supplied by Alrad Instruments Ltd in Newbury who have approved Quintek Ltd as an official integrator of SHARC systems. Future collaboration will include interfacing to the new DALSA Motion Vision Area Scan and Piranha Linescan Cameras. Ian Alderton, Managing Director for Alrad said:
'DERA required a complete integrated SHARC system with the DALSA high
frame rate cameras. Quintek helped define the requirements and provided a solution within the customers budget. We have now appointed Quintek as our official SHARC integrator
to be continued
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