Integrated HSPA Femtocell Software Reference Design Introduced

Bath, England and San Diego -- Continuous Computing, global provider of integrated systems and services that enable telecom equipment manufacturers to rapidly deploy Next Generation Networks (NGN), and picoChip, a supplier of femtocell silicon, recently announced that they are partnering to bring to market an integrated High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) femtocell software reference design. Through a level of collaboration not yet seen in the marketplace, the joint femtocell solution will pre-integrate Continuous Computing's Trillium Femtocell protocol software with picoChip's PC8208 software and PC202 picoArray single-chip processor. Continuous Computing and picoChip hosted demonstrations of the integrated femtocell solution, featuring live voice, video, and high-speed data capability, at their booths in Hall 1 (Stands 1F04 and 1D56, respectively), at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain from February 11-14, 2008.

ABI Research predicts that the femtocell market will serve 152 million users on 36 million access points worldwide, and a report from Unstrung Insider calculates that the femtocell market may reach $850M by 2011. For widespread femtocell deployment to become a reality, however, accelerating development and trusted reference designs is essential. To that end, the combination of Trillium Femtocell software from Continuous Computing with picoChip's purpose-built femtocell silicon is a highly-integrated solution that offers a trusted, pre-integrated and tested reference design, thereby addressing a major concern for Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) device manufacturers. The femtocell reference design reduces project risk and design complexity for femtocell manufacturers while accelerating time-to-money – a crucial factor in establishing market share quickly.

"Since their inception in 2006, femtocells have been a rapidly-growing, disruptive force that promises to transform the industry landscape in the near future," said Mike Dagenais, president and chief executive officer at Continuous Computing. "We fully support femtocell technology, and by forging strategic partnerships with leading femtocell technology companies including picoChip, a leading chipset manufacturer with best-in-class silicon, we are able to offer our customers the most comprehensive solution available on the marketplace today."

Continuous Computing's Trillium Femtocell 3G/4G Wireless protocol software, which features support for HSPA data rates and compliance with 3GPP specifications through Release 7, has been optimized for performance on the ARM processor in picoChip's PC202 processor and integrated with picoChip's physical layer embedded software to reduce the overall memory footprint. Trillium Femtocell protocol support also includes Trillium SIP and UMTS Generic Access Network (GAN) core network interface options, among others. The PC202 is a single-chip device, combining a high-performance ARM core running the Trillium stack and a powerful multi-core digital signal processing (DSP) fabric running picoChip's PC8208 baseband code.

"As the femtocell market takes off, our collaboration with Continuous Computing comes at the perfect time to solve the protocol stack complexity challenges confronting the industry," said Guillaume d'Eyssautier, president and chief executive officer at picoChip. "We chose to partner with Continuous Computing because we trusted that the company's long history in Trillium software and system integration would enable us to stay on the forefront of this industry. Our PC8208 baseband code is well-proven; combining that with Trillium enables the first highly-integrated, low-cost femtocell solution with robust, proven software and architecture on the market."

Continuous Computing and picoChip's joint demonstration of the integrated femtocell solution will exhibit a functional femtocell servicing live voice, video, and high-speed data. Using standard 3G world phones and data cards, the demonstration features Continuous Computing's Trillium Femtocell protocol software and sample application, with complete 3G signaling capability and basic call control support, pre-integrated with picoChip's PC202 reference platform, providing the RF interface, data processing, and application processing support.

SOURCE: Continuous Computing