|
picoChip: Femtocells become reality at World Summit
London, England, Jul 03, 2009 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) --
picoChip helped to prove the growing maturity of the femtocell market at the Femtocell World Summit last week: winning the Technology Award, participating in the first demonstration of standards-compliant interoperability and showing its cost-optimized picoXcell(TM) SoCs in customers' products.
In a significant milestone for the femtocell industry Vodafone announced the first European commercial launch of a femtocell service, and AT&T confirmed their plans for HSPA launch later this year. A number of companies showed femtocells using picoChip silicon, including Sagem who demonstrated their latest product, using the PC302 picoXcell SoC. picoChip collaborated with Starent Networks and Continuous Computing in the first demonstration of multi-vendor interoperability via the 3GPP Iuh standard. As an affirmation of the increasing maturity of the industry there was much discussion of the implications of moving to mass production, including a demonstration of a high-volume manufacturing system by Keithley.
Charles Derivaux, M2M communications department director at Sagem Communications, commented on his company's use of the picoChip picoXcell PC302 device: "We're delighted to have shown a fully working product at the summit. Quality partnerships with suppliers such as picoChip were a great help to have so quickly introduced this second generation femtocell. Femtocell products are here today: commercial deployments are already under way." Toon's presentation at the Femtocells World Summit conference was entitled 'Mass-market femtocells: requirements on chips, systems and standards'. In it, he set out his vision of the steps the industry needs to take to promote high-volume femtocell deployment. A major part of this, he argues, is the need to manage supplier and partner relationships: for instance, chip companies must forge close bonds with their manufacturing partners (the silicon foundries) allowing quality improvement and cost reduction via techniques such as yield enhancement and risk management.
"Operator launches, commercial products and a broadening ecosystem of support such as manufacturing test systems, all attest to the fact that the femtocell sector is growing up quickly," added Nigel Toon, president and CEO of picoChip. "We're now moving into a phase in which innovation will need to be supplemented with high levels of quality, experience and reliability - operators will settle for nothing less." An example of this was demonstrated by the Keithley-ACE manufacturing test solution which provides high speed calibration and functional performance testing of picoChip-based femtocell designs. The system requires minimal additional hardware and provides a low cost, high speed solution for femtocell manufacturing test.
In addition to customer and partner activities, picoChip mounted a live demonstration of its picoXcell PC3xx series HSPA+ SoCs running the Continuous Computing Stack software. The latest addition to the picoXcell family, the PC312, supports eight users with simultaneous voice and data.
picoChip's joint exhibit with Starent Networks and Continuous Computing demonstrated the operation of the 3GPP Release 8 Iuh interface between the 3G Home Node-B (HNB) featuring picoXcell femtocell silicon and PHY software from picoChip and Trillium femtocell software from Continuous Computing, and a 3G Home Node-B Gateway (HNB-GW) based on Starent Networks' ST40 platform.
Aditya Kaul, senior analyst, mobile networks at ABI Research, commented, "The Starent Networks, picoChip and Continuous Computing Iuh interoperability demonstration is an important milestone. A necessary condition for successful mass market adoption is true end-to-end open interoperability. Interoperability at such an early stage in the standardization process is a significant achievement, which indicates the level of commitment that the femtocell ecosystem has in working together, ultimately driving operator confidence in the technology." As a mark of picoChip's presence in the industry, of the 23 shortlisted Femto Forum Femtocell Industry Award nominees (operators and manufacturers) no fewer than 16 use picoChip's femtocell silicon, with picoChip's own picoXcell single-chip femtocell baseband SoCs winning enabling technology category. Additionally, Chris Smart of the picoChip CTO Office was shortlisted together with Alan Law of Vodafone for their work on interference and coordinating the analysis and white paper discussing how femtocells affect the network.
picoChip is the industry's leading supplier of femtocell silicon. The company's picoXcell SoCs crystallize five years' experience in the field and are used in the majority of products and deployments. Separately, its picoArray programmable wireless processors are class-leading flexible, programmable solutions for any wireless standard, including GSM, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX and cdma2000.
Editor's Note: picoXcell and picoArray are registered trademarks of picoChip. All other trademarks and servicemarks are the property of their respective owners.
About picoChip
picoChip is enabling the next generation of wireless infrastructure. Its picoXcell(TM) family of optimized silicon devices is the leader in the fast growing market for femtocell access points. Its picoArray(TM) family of flexible wireless processors is the leading solution for OFDMA-based network equipment, and is backed by comprehensive software support for global standards such as EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX, LTE, cdma2000 and GSM. Located in Bath, UK and Beijing, China, picoChip is re-shaping mobile networks.
For more information, visit www.picochip.com
CONTACT: Rupert Baines, picoChip
Tel: +44 (0)1225 469 744
Fax: +44 (0)1225 469 767
e-mail: rupertb@picoChip.com
WWW: http://www.picoChip.com
Oliver Davies / Jenny Noad Publitek Limited
Tel: +44 (0)1225 470 000
Fax: +44 (0)1225 470 047
e-mail: oliver.davies@publitek.com
e-mail: jenny.noad@publitek.com
WWW: http://www.publitek.com
((M2 Communications disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to info@m2.com.
[ Back To Smart Product Home's Homepage ]
|