SDR Insider

NSN to show off gigabit TD-LTE at CTIA

John Glossner — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:52:43 +0000

NSN is applying LTE-Advanced hallmarks, such as carrier aggregation, to TD-LTE. Full Story at Rethink Wireless.

TSMC pushes 28-nm Cortex-A9 to 3.1-GHz

John Glossner — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:29:35 +0000

For mobile application signoff conditions the 28HPM process delivers clock frequencies in the range 1.5-GHz to 2.0-GHz… The 28HPM implementation runs twice as fast as the 40-nm counterpart made by TSMC under the same operating conditions… Full Story at EE Times.

Huawei to give Intel LTE development support in China

John Glossner — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:24:30 +0000

The collaboration will be based on Huawei’s know how in LTE TDD network infrastructure and Intel’s mobile communications platforms, Huawei said. Full Story at EE Times.

Neul launches ‘white-space’ smart metering in Cambridge

John Glossner — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:08:13 +0000

The network set up follows on from 10 months of testing in urban and rural areas around Cambridge by the the Cambridge TV White Spaces Consortium, which comprises leading international and UK technology and media companies. Full Story at EE Times.

Huawei may start selling its mobile chips

John Glossner — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:05:37 +0000

“In the future, whether it be mobile broadband devices, tablets, or smartphones, Huawei will be able to provide its own core chip solution,” said Huawei executive vice president Eric Xu. Full Story at C114.

China Mulls National CPU Architecture Spec

John Glossner — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:03:14 +0000

At least five existing processor architectures are up for consideration as the basis of the standard. The initiative also could be used to define its own instruction set architecture (ISA) or extend an existing one. Full Story at C114. See also EE Times.

White Space trial: First Cambridge, then… THE WORLD

John Glossner — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:00:54 +0000

In the UK, White Space devices should be legal around the end of 2012, and yesterday marked the end of extensive trials of the technology across Cambridge. Despite it being completely legal to use White Space in the US, the campaign did prompt the FCC to impose some fairly draconian limits on the power and frequencies [...]

First automated software-to-chip dream

John Glossner — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:50:31 +0000

Two”what if” (LTE PHY) designs were produced in 12 weeks for MimoOn, one for TSMC’s 40-nanometer process and a second for its 90-nanometer process, Algotochip said. The latter of which was chosen for its final SoC due to its lower power consumption, the company said. Algotochip’s design flow first makes an analysis of the designers C-code [...]

ST-Ericsson’s New Vision

John Glossner — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:24:06 +0000

The Company re-affirms its vision to be a leader in smartphone and tablet platforms and unveiled a new strategy based on repositioning the whole business model. … an agreement to transfer to STMicroelectronics its stand-alone application processor activities … “The industry is changing and our customers are looking for a single application processor platform that can [...]

Imagination licenses Ensigma IP to Qualcomm

John Glossner — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:29:57 +0000

The Ensigma platform is based on the combination of the universal communications core (UCC) and the Meta multithreaded processor to provide a software programmable multi-standard, multi-stream for broadcast digital and mobile television and digital and FM radio. It also serves as a Wi-Fi transceiver. Full Story at EE Times.

HTC is developing its own CPU with ST-Ericsson

John Glossner — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:28:05 +0000

Contrary to high performance Samsung and Apple CPUs which power their flagships, the new HTC processor will run the lower end smartphones. The devices with new chip will start shipping in volume sometime in 2013. Full story at CII4.

Intel grabs 15% of cellular baseband market

John Glossner — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:03:18 +0000

The top five ranking (by revenue) was Qualcomm (45%), Intel (15%), MediaTek, Texas Instruments, and ST-Ericsson, with Qualcomm leading by dint of its dominant market position in CDMA, LTE and W-CDMA basebands. Full Story at EE Times.

Sequans, Nationz team up on LTE chipsets

John Glossner — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:44:17 +0000

The collaboration is yielding multi-band, multi-mode devices of several types, including mobile routers, CPE, and USB dongles. Initial products will become available around the middle of the year. Full Story at EE Times.

MediaTek buys baseband DSP IP licensor Coresonic

John Glossner — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:44:44 +0000

the company developed its SIMT – single instruction multiple tasks – DSP architecture for wireless baseband ICs, which it licensed to MediaTek in February 2011. Full Story at EE Times.

Looking At 40 Years of Processor Improvements

John Glossner — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:18:15 +0000

Stanford’s CPU DB project is like an open IMDB for microprocessors. Full story at Slashdot.

$20 SDR Receiver?

John Glossner — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:19:52 +0000

it has been discovered that some USB TV Tuners using the Realtek RTL2832U can be used as a cheap SDR, since the chip allows transferring the raw I/Q samples to the host, which is officially used for DAB/DAB+/FM demodulation. Full Story at The Dumpster Diving Geek. More at Slashdot.

Docomo kills LTE semiconductor JV

John Glossner — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:17:40 +0000

…with Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited, NEC Corporation, Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and announced in December 2011, was terminated because a consensus on the details of the joint venture company was not reached by the target deadline of the end of March. Full Story at EE Times.

Red Hat is first $1B Open Source Company

John Glossner — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:01:41 +0000

Red Hat announced $1.13 billion in annual revenue, up 25 percent from a year ago. This officially marks the first time a company that makes 100% of its living from open source products topped the billion-dollar mark. Full Story at Business Insider.

XMOS Turns Software Into Hardware

John Glossner — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:50:07 +0000

They use an internal multithreaded microprocessor to “fake” the functions of programmable logic. In other words, the processor – entirely under software control – wiggles the chip’s I/O pins in whatever way you define. And you define those functions entirely with C code. There’s no schematic, no logic-design software, no drag-and-drop peripheral manipulation. It’s just [...]

Nokia to refuse licensing SIM patents if ETSI chooses Apple design

John Glossner — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:32:44 +0000

Finnish handset maker Nokia has said that it will elect not to license essential SIM-related patents to a new nano-SIM standard if the European Telecommunications Standards Institute chooses Apple’s design over its own. Full story at Apple Insider

Open Source Framework for Commercial Baseband Software Project Call for Contributions

John Glossner — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:52:56 +0000

The Wireless Innovation Forum (SDR Forum version 2.0), a non-profit organization dedicated to driving the future of radio communications and systems worldwide, announced today a Call for Contributions for the previously announced project focused on reducing cost and time to market in deploying 3G and 4G, “3G+” systems, including: Fixed WiMAX™ (802.16d), Mobile WiMAX (802.16e), [...]

The Future of Mobile

John Glossner — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 23:22:23 +0000

Compliments of Business Insider.

Cellular and Wi-Fi bodies work on common roaming

John Glossner — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 23:16:19 +0000

The Small Cells Forum unveiled an initiative to bring standards efforts within the 3GPP, Wi-Fi Alliance and others closer together. Now there are signs of cooperation at the operator level, with the GSM Association announcing a deal with the main body of WLan providers, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA). Full Story at Rethink Wireless

Huawei claims 30Gbps ‘Beyond LTE’

John Glossner — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 23:14:06 +0000

More than 20 times the speeds of current 4G networks. It achieves this using a combination of advanced techniques including antenna structure and MIMO arrays, plus changes to the RF architecture and intermediate frequency algorithms. Full Story at Rethink Wireless

The Startup Ecosystem

John Glossner — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:58:31 +0000

Great pic of the startup ecosystem. Hat tip to Josh Brown.

Wireless breakthrough: one frequency, multiple signals

John Glossner — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 13:44:01 +0000

The technique is based on adding orbital angular momentum to the signal-carrying mix, essentially twisting the directed signal in a way that offsets multiple signals in the same frequency. Full story at The Register.

Recent Processor Announcements

John Glossner — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:55:03 +0000

With a lot of exciting activities at MWC in Barcelona I thought I’d update everyone on the latest processor announcements. Sorted for the first five in order of smartphone applications processor market share (well, except for Apple): QUALCOMM: Snapdragon S4 (Krait) MSM8960 MDP is a dual-core 1.5 GHz in house designed ARMv7 architecture implemented in TSMC 28nm LP [...]

CEVA launches new low-power DSP cores for the broadest comms standards

John Glossner — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:37:44 +0000

Each XC4000 processor, which comes with a varying number of vector units, is designed to be scalable. The variations range from a single vector unit and 16 MACs to 4 vector units and 128 MACs Full story at EE Times.

ZTE to Show New Mimosa X Handset Featuring NVIDIA Tegra Dual-Core Processor and NVIDIA Icera Modem at MWC 2012

John Glossner — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:35:36 +0000

Features include advanced audio distribution profile (A2DP), Dolby sound, digital living network alliance (DLNA) compatibility for easy sharing of content, HD video record and play, dual microphones, and built-in gyroscope. It also includes an Icera baseband processor, making it the first phone to incorporate this cutting-edge technology that was acquired last year by NVIDIA. Press release [...]

InterDigital signs two white spaces partners

John Glossner — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:50:49 +0000

Its eyes have lighted on the nascent white spaces segment, and it has announced two technology collaborations in the space of three weeks – with US database provider Spectrum Bridge, and India’s Ittiam Systems. Full Story at Rethink Wireless.

FCC Gets Unlicensed White Space Autonomy

John Glossner — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:48:27 +0000

In a last-minute compromise reached by House and Senate leaders on Thursday, both sides agree to pay for the payroll tax cut by auctioning off $22 billion worth wireless spectrum — expected to total some 120 MHz, from UHF channel 31 to 51. Full Story at DailyWireless.org.

Official: Sony and Ericsson are divorced

John Glossner — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:38:38 +0000

Sony will rename Sony Ericsson “Sony Mobile Communications”, and further integrate the mobile phone business as a vital element of its electronics business, with the aim of accelerating convergence between Sony’s lineup of network enabled consumer electronics products, including smart phones, tablets, TVs and PCs. Full Story at The Register.

Toumaz and Imagination form low-power wireless chip firm

John Glossner — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:53:46 +0000

Toumaz Microsystems gets all of the Toumaz chip design team and will focus on the design, development and sale of ICs and solutions for radios embedded in internet-connected devices in markets including: home automation, enterprise automation, healthcare, smart power, security, Full Story at Electronics Weekly.

Renesas rolls combo LTE/3G baseband

John Glossner — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:51:11 +0000

The MP5232 is a single chip that supports both LTE (TD/FD Cat 4) and HSPA+, aimed at enabling $150-300 devices. To date, most LTE chips require separate baseband chips to handle 2G/3G baseband connections. Full Story at EE Times.

FCC plans to reject Lightsquared’s 4G network

John Glossner — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:48:46 +0000

We’ve been hearing from government regulators since June that Lightsquared’s proposed LTE network could interfere with GPS devices. Today the NTIA, an agency that oversees spectrum use, issued a letter to the FCC that claims Lightsquared’s network will indeed impact GPS services, and that “there is no practical way to mitigate the interference at this [...]

Airlines join opposition to LightSquared project

John Glossner — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:30:32 +0000

Thomas Hendricks, SVP of airline trade group Airlines for America, said in written testimony to a US House hearing that LightSquared would have “ruinous effects” on aviation navigation systems because of signal interference and added. Full Story at Rethink Wireless.

Samsung Cuts LTE Cost in Half

John Glossner — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:28:01 +0000

The Galaxy Nexus sports a new version of the LTE baseband chip. The new chip is estimated at nearly half the cost of the prior chip’s $23 price tag. This type of cost reduction is an important milestone in securing the rapid migration to LTE throughout the world. Full Story at ABI.

OpenStax

John Glossner — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:26:09 +0000

Rice University, which has been pushing alternative distribution mechanisms for scholarly publications for years, has announced a new initiative, by which they hope to publish free, high-quality textbooks in core subjects like physics and biology via a non-profit publisher called OpenStax College. It’s the polar opposite of Apple’s iBooks textbooks, which, while they too help [...]

MIT Mints a Valuable New Form of Academic Currency

John Glossner — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:50:08 +0000

If they prove they’ve learned the material, MITx will, for a small fee, give them a credential certifying as much. MITx is the next big step in the open-educational-resources movement that MIT helped start in 2001, when it began putting its course lecture notes, videos, and exams online, where anyone in the world could use them [...]

Apple’s Mobile Share

John Glossner — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:46:16 +0000

Apple reached 75% of profit share, nearly 40% of revenue share and 9% of units share. Two great posts from Asymco here and here.

White Space Show Down

John Glossner — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:38:05 +0000

Sen. John Kerry urged the Internet community on Tuesday to rally to push Congress to free up more unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi and other new wireless technologies. Full story at dailywireless.org

North Carolina Officially Launches the First Commercial TV White Spaces Network

John Glossner — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:35:53 +0000

Spectrum Bridge Enables Wilmington / New Hanover County and the Wireless Industry to Launch First FCC-Approved Smart City Using TVWS. Full Story at Market Watch.

Altair chipset finishes LTE Band Class 14 testing

John Glossner — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:32:00 +0000

The FourGee-3100/6200 LTE chipset supports both FDD and TDD variants on a single semiconductor and software platform in any 3GPP frequency band between 700 MHz and 2700 MHz. It implements a high-performance MIMO receive architecture and is based on a proprietary software-defined radio processor, offering performance that exceeds conventional communications DSP cores, yet consumes a [...]

Tensilica’s ConnX Baseband Engine DSP Core Successfully Deployed by NXP Semiconductors

John Glossner — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:29:54 +0000

NXP to Also Use Tensilica’s ConnX in Global Intelligent Traffic System Field Trials. Full Story at Market Watch.

LTE report

John Glossner — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:20:06 +0000

The Global Mobile Suppliers Association reports that there are now 269 LTE-enabled user devices, manufactured by 57 companies. It’s a six-fold jump in six months. The GSMA also noted the number of LTE-enabled tablets has doubled in the past six months. Full Story at DailyWireless.org

Maxim acquires LTE chip firm

John Glossner — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:11:23 +0000

Genasic was founded by Ashok Dhuna who served as CEO. Dhuna was previously vice president of RF engineering at Sequans and prior to that he was chief technology officer and founder of Synad Technologies Ltd., a fabless wireless LAN chipmaker sold to STMicroelectronics in 2003. Full Story at EE Times.

Recent College Graduate Unemployment Rates

John Glossner — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:04:00 +0000

Engineering major with three relevant internships in the engineering field? Ding. Ding. We have a winner. Job. Full Story at the Washington Post

LightSquared accuses government of ‘rigged’ interference tests

John Glossner — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:25:44 +0000

The unanimous conclusion of the group was that the LightSquared planned system did interfere with many GPS receivers, and an analysis by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would also interfere with several aircraft systems. Read Full Story at The Register

Genachowski Lobbies for Unlicensed White Spaces at CES

John Glossner — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:25:25 +0000

said the FCC’s unlicensed spectrum use generates about $30 billion worth of economic value every year. The FCC hopes to utilize auction off the now freed up television spectrum, which could be worth an estimated $25 billion. Full Story at Daily Wireless.

It’s going to be a White (Space) winter after all

John Glossner — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:15:58 +0000

The FCC has, as expected, granted the first database to Florida-based Spectrum Bridge, who recently completed a set of trials intended to prove the company had the capacity, and the capability, to run such a thing. Those trials didn’t go perfectly, and the FCC expects Spectrum Bridge to address the remaining issues ahead of the [...]