AirWalk, Mindspeed And Lime Microsystems Collaborate On LTE Small Cell Technology Development
AirWalk Communications Inc., the leader in innovative small cell radio access networks, Mindspeed Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of semiconductor solutions for network infrastructure applications; and Lime Microsystems, a semiconductor company specializing in digitally configurable transceivers for the next generation of wireless broadband systems, have together developed an LTE small cell product to be on display in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress Feb 14-17, 2011.
Small cells are a crucial element for LTE networks. Due to the unique wideband nature of LTE, throughput decline often occurs at macrocell edges, and picocells and metrocells are the ideal solution for providing full coverage and capacity. In addition, heavy data traffic hot spots tend to unbalance the macrocell coverage, and small cells provide an effective means for data offload. To support the exponential growth of in-building data usage, residential femtocells and enterprise femtocells are being deployed to extend the network inside buildings that are RF challenged.
The three companies have offered their individual expertise in the development of the LTE small cell product. AirWalk is an expert in small cells with a broad portfolio of IP-based products including femtocells, enterprise femtocells and picocells. Mindspeed's Transcede system-on-chip processors offer highly integrated and cost-effective application-specific solutions with low power requirements and complex processing capabilities. Lime Microsystems offers unique wideband multi-standard transceiver technology enabling the deployment of high performance, cost effective CDMA, WCDMA and LTE (TDD and FDD) small cell base stations.
"The market demand for LTE is growing exponentially due to the popularity of mobile video and data applications, making LTE small cell solutions essential to provide data off-load and coverage improvements as operators migrate from 3G towards LTE," said Chris Osborn, CTO at AirWalk Communications. "Working closely with the teams at Mindspeed and Lime has enabled us to introduce the most advanced LTE small cell solution available."
"We are very pleased that AirWalk has selected the Transcede Baseband Processor to power their next generation LTE base stations," said Alan Taylor, director of marketing for the communications convergence processing business unit at Mindspeed. "AirWalk is a leading supplier of picocell, enterprise and residential femtocells to service providers and are a great example of how Transcede can be leveraged to create optimal small cell solutions very quickly".
"We are very happy to be building on our success with AirWalk's best in class CDMA product by delivering our transceiver technology for their new LTE platform," said Philippe Roux, VP business development at Lime Microsystems. "AirWalk is leading the way in providing innovative solutions to the market utilizing our multi-standard transceiver IC, LMS6002DFN. Our chip supports all frequencies from 400MHz to 4GHz and data bandwidths up to 28MHz."
The LTE small cell technology is planned to be extended into a complete portfolio of products over the next few years. The introductory product supports the 700MHz band, utilizes 500mW power output, accommodates up to 200 simultaneous users, and supports S1 packet core network interface.
The Mobile World Congress LTE small cell product can be seen at Mindspeed stand 2H57 (Hall 2.0) and at Lime Microsystems hospitality suite 3.1HS86.
About AirWalk Communications
AirWalk Communications, Inc. is a leader in innovative small-cell solutions. AirWalk's portfolio, consisting of femtocells, enterprise femtocells, picocells and microcells, complements the existing macro network by enabling operators to extend coverage and capacity in high-density areas. As operators deploy 4G/LTE networks, small cells play a vital role in delivering seamless coverage and capacity, and AirWalk's unique flat IP architecture is the preferred solution for small cell deployments. Established in 2002, AirWalk is a privately held CDMA and LTE radio access network company with a customer base consisting of wireless operators worldwide. For more information, visit www.airwalkcom.com.
About Mindspeed Technologies
Mindspeed designs, develops and sells semiconductor solutions for communications applications in the wireline and wireless network infrastructure, which includes enterprise networks, broadband access networks (fixed and mobile), and metropolitan and wide area networks. We have organized our solutions for these interrelated and rapidly converging networks into three families. Our communications convergence processing (CCP) products include ultra-low-power, multi-core digital signal processor (DSP) system-on-chip (SoC) products for the fixed and mobile (3G/4G/LTE) carrier infrastructure and residential and enterprise service platforms. Our high-performance analog (HPA) products solve difficult switching, timing and synchronization challenges in next-generation optical networking, enterprise storage and broadcast video transmission applications. Our wide area networking (WAN) communications portfolio helps optimize today's circuit-switched networks. Mindspeed's products are sold to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for use in a variety of network infrastructure equipment which serves these markets. For more information, visit www.mindspeed.com.
About Lime Microsystems
Lime Microsystems is a fabless semiconductor company specializing in digitally configurable transceivers for the next generation of wireless broadband systems. Lime has developed broadband transceiver ICs that significantly reduce the bill of materials for small cell (femtocell and picocell) wireless networks. Lime is backed by ACT Venture Capital and DFJ Esprit. For more information, visit www.limemicro.com.
SOURCE: AirWalk Communications, Inc.