Freescale intros products on QorIQ platform

SHENZEN, CHINA: Freescale Semiconductor today announced the launch of its first 'base station-on-chip' products built on its QorIQ Qonverge multimode platform.

The new QorIQ Qonverge PSC9132 system-on-chip (SoC) for picocell and PSC9130/31 SoCs for femtocell base stations share a single, scalable architecture that simultaneously supports multiple air interfaces, providing operators and OEMs highly integrated heterogeneous solutions that help minimize power consumption, cost and design time, said a press release.

The QorIQ Qonverge portfolio offers a scalable line of processors built on the same architecture that spans from small- to large-cell base stations. The platform allows OEMs to reuse software regardless of cell size.

Through the new platform customers can leverage common hardware, software architecture and tools to minimize capital expenditure and benefit from a comprehensive solution that helps speed time to market.

Freescale’s first available QorIQ Qonverge processors are the PSC9130/31 femtocell SoCs (for eight to 16 simultaneous users) and PSC9132 picocell/enterprise SoC devices (for up to 64 simultaneous users). The processors support a range of air interfaces, including LTE (FDD/TDD), WCDMA (HSPA+) WiMAX UMTS and CDMA.

The devices also incorporate glueless RFIC communication and antennae interfaces, eliminating the need for additional chips (such as FPGAs) and ultimately reducing board space and cost. The ultra-integrated PSC913x family also provides support for GPS synchronization and 2G/3G sniffing in a single device, the release added.

“Availability of the first QorIQ Qonverge products is a milestone for the wireless industry, which is in dire need of innovative new solutions to address challenging power requirements and exploding demand for additional bandwidth,” said Scott Aylor, director and general manager of Freescale’s Wireless Access Division.

He added that the QorIQ Qonverge portfolio offers unprecedented scalability and software compatibility, giving customers flexibility, reduced cost and design-time savings as they move up to larger capacity systems.

PSC9130/31 femto SoC specifications

- Eight to 16 users (WCDMA, LTE, CDMA2K) and simultaneous multimode.

- 2x2 MiMO.

- 1x e500 core and 1x SC3850 core.

- MAPLE-B2F acceleration.

PSC9132 pico/enterprise femto SoC specifications

- 32-64 users (WCDMA, LTE) and simultaneous multimode.

- 2x4 MiMO.

- 2x e500 cores and 2x SC3850 cores.

- MAPLE-B2P acceleration.

The PSC9131 reference design board, planned for availability in Q4 2011, incorporates the processors, memory interfaces and most peripheral functions.

While the PSC9132 QorIQ Qonverge development system, planned for availability in Q4 2011, offers a high-performance computing evaluation, development and test platform, the release added.