Mindspeed, Ceva to bring SDR technology for LTE

US licensor of intellectual property and DSP cores Ceva and semiconductor developer Mindspeed Technologies are collaborating to bring software-defined radio (SDR) technology to LTE wireless infrastructure equipment. Mindspeed has selected the Ceva-XC323 communication processor to further improve the performance and flexibility of its Transcede 4G wireless baseband products. Mindspeed's current generation of Transcede 3G/4G wireless products utilises the Ceva-X1641 DSP to deliver a high-performance, multi-core platform. By upgrading to the Ceva-XC323 DSP, Mindspeed enables Transcede customers to apply software-defined radio technologies to improve performance, flexibility and time-to-market for their infrastructure processor designs, while maintaining full software compatibility with previous Transcede designs. The Ceva-XC323 can address the complete range of mobile site products required by network operators, including femtocells, picocells, microcells and macrocells. In addition, the core incorporates extensive support for wireless infrastructure control plane processing, typically handled by separate processors. A new class of high-performance silicon, Mindspeed's Transcede family of SoCs can deliver three sectors of LTE processing in a single device and enables the first 64-user "picocell on a chip." It also provides substantial processing headroom using a modular software approach that allows manufacturers to incorporate their own proprietary, value-added features to a standard eNodeB implementation, such as network listening for base station self-optimisation and auto-configuration. The product uses a task-based hardware architecture model that enables software developed on one Transcede device to be ported to other products within the Transcede family across the full range of system platforms.