Arctic Semiconductor formerly known as SiTune Corporation, a leader in low-power, universal RF chipsets, has announced that its groundbreaking RF transceiver, IceWings™ is powering a new universal 5G small cell infrastructure platform from Compal Electronics, one of the world’s largest ODMs. The world’s first open ecosystem small cell platform leverages IceWings’ design integrated with NXP® Semiconductors’ Layerscape® Access LA12xx programmable baseband processor to achieve the highest performance at the lowest power consumption and beats 3GPP standard requirements, all at a competitive cost. The platform is being demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona this week.
“The introduction of this universal small cell platform is a pivotal point in 5G infrastructure development, allowing 5G coverage to scale anywhere and everywhere at an exponentially faster pace,” said Vahid Toosi, CEO of Arctic Semiconductor. “Our collaboration with NXP and Compal has created a 5G platform with an unbeatable mix of performance, flexibility, and cost that unlocks the true potential of 5G infrastructure and applications. Arctic prioritizes collaboration with key industry partners to build highly integrated platforms and remove barriers towards reaping the benefits of 5G across various market segments.”
The new infrastructure platform can operate at any 5G FR1 frequency bands from 600MHz to 7.2GHz. A 4x4 MIMO solution, it is fully integrated with best-in-class components and supports throughputs beyond Gbps speeds. Customers across the globe can use the universal platform to produce cost-optimized, low-power 5G small cells and O-RAN Radio Units for a wide range of applications including all-in-one or distributed networks in public or private bands.
Compal selected Arctic’s IceWings, an innovative RF transceiver with 4 integrated transmitters and receivers that supports a wide range of standards in signal frequencies below 7.2GHz. The new silicon is based on an advanced CMOS process node, providing superior performance with RF enhancements for both 5G Sub-7GHz and mmWave infrastructure.
“The IceWings design allows us to build a more compact, reliable platform that consumes far less power,” said JS Liang, Vice President from Compal. “IceWings is fully integrated, compatible with NXP baseband processors, covers multiple 5G frequency bands, and is fully programmable while meeting 3GPP specifications. Our collaboration with Arctic jointly creates the world’s first truly universal small cell infrastructure platform for 5G comprised of best-in-class components capable of supporting product needs of our customers worldwide.”
This integrated small cell system is based on NXP’s Layerscape multicore Arm® SoC and is coupled with the new LA12xx software defined radio. Together this solution supports high throughput transmission and reception as well as highly complex digital functions including Digital Pre-Distortion. The IceWings RFIC is highly integrated and delivers 4 transmit and 4 receive paths via a glue-less interface directly to NXP’s LA12xx baseband processor.
“By integrating support for our high-performance Layerscape solutions, Arctic joins NXP’s growing 5G ecosystem of collaborators that are enabling innovative and faster time-to-market solutions,” said Jeff Steinheider, Vice President of Industrial Edge Processing Product Line at NXP Semiconductor. “This new 5G NR platform from Compal is an excellent example of how that growing ecosystem can deliver more choices for our global customers, along with greater flexibility and scalability to accelerate their 5G infrastructure deployments globally.”
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