Date: 24/06/2012

Base station SoC from Freescale supports both small and large cells

New base station-on-chip from Freescale Semiconductor is built on a common architecture that scales from small to large cells. Freescale’s new QorIQ Qonverge B4420 baseband processor offers high throughput, simultaneous multimode operation for up to 250 users and support for the LTE, LTE Advanced and WCDMA (HSPA+) standards. The B4420 is designed for high-capacity metropolitan areas to offer optimal coverage for end users.

“Our first generation of QorIQ Qonverge base station-on-chip devices will help transform the future of wireless infrastructure equipment, delivering the technology required to help ramp up LTE, while reducing cost and future-proofing new WCDMA deployments,” said Scott Aylor, general manager of Freescale’s Wireless Access Division. “Our new B4420 baseband processors give base station OEMs access to the industry’s most scalable single-chip solutions for feature-rich micro- and metro-carrier deployed base stations.”

The metrocell B4420 SoC shares a common architecture and is software-compatible with the small cell and macrocell members of the QorIQ Qonverge portfolio, and it is package- and pin-compatible with the QorIQ Qonverge B4860 device. This extensive compatibility helps OEMs speed time to market and leverage their software and hardware investments.

The B4420 IC integrate two dual-threaded Power Architecture e6500 processor cores running at 1.6 GHz and two StarCore digital signal processor (DSP) SC3900 flexible vector processor cores running at 1.2 GHz, along with the ultra-high performance Multi-Accelerator Platform Engine for Baseband (MAPLE-B) for Layer-1 acceleration, and accelerators for Layer-2 and transport processing.

Built on 28-nm process technology, the B4420 provides up to two 20 MHz LTE sectors, 600 Mbps of throughput.

The QorIQ Qonverge base station-on-chip portfolio is built on two proven technologies.
The Power Architecture e6500 dual-thread core and Freescale’s newest StarCore DSP core, the SC3900. Freescale claims both these cores offer better processing power compared to other cores in the market

Availability: Freescale plans to offer samples of QorIQ Qonverge B4420 devices in Q3 2012.