Freescale Semiconductor today introduced a metrocell system-on-chip (SoC) solution--the B4420 baseband processor--which delivers simultaneous multimode operation for up to 250 users and supports LTE, LTE Advanced and WCDMA/HSPA+ standards.
The processor, which will begin sampling in the third-quarter of this year, is designed for high-capacity metropolitan areas and enhanced outdoor coverage where macrocell coverage is insufficient. Freescale made the product announcement at the Freescale Technology Forum in San Antonio.
Freescale said the B4420 completes the first generation of its QorIQ Qonverge portfolio, which also includes SoCs for small cell and multi-sector macrocell base stations. The devices in the portfolio share a common architecture to help OEMs speed time to market.
Built on 28-nanometer process technology, the B4420 provides up to two 20 MHz LTE sectors and 600 Mbps of throughput and relay support.
The B4420 integrates two dual-threaded Power Architecture e6500 processor cores running at 1.6 GHz plus two StarCore digital signal processor SC3900 flexible vector processor cores running at 1.2 GHz, along with the Multi-Accelerator Platform Engine for Baseband (MAPLE-B) for Layer-1 acceleration and accelerators for Layer-2 and transport processing.
In addition to introducing the new baseband processor, Freescale also announced five energy-smart Airfast RF power solutions for small cell and macrocell base stations. The product are designed to address requirements for complex networks supporting multiple wireless standard and escalating data transmission rates.
For more:
- see this Freescale release
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