networkZONE Products for the week of September 17, 2007
PMC-Sierra Inc Says…
WiMAX MIMO RF IC Solutions Feature Multi-Band Operation, Fast Data Rates
WiZIRD family delivers full 2Tx/2Rx MIMO with multi-band capability to extend wireless coverage, increase data rate and enable global roaming
PMC-Sierra Inc. has introduced its first WiMAX RF IC solutions for Femtocell base stations, Customer Premises Equipment, and Mobile Station designs The PM8800 WiZIRD 2Tx/2Rx is the industry’s most integrated WiMAX RF IC solution with a full 2Tx/2Rx Multiple In/Multiple Out (MIMO) capability to support a maximum downlink data rate of 63 Mbit/s per sector and a peak uplink data rate of 28 Mbits/s per sector in a 10 MHz channel. The PM8800’s Multi-Band capability (2.3-2.7 GHz and 3.3-3.8 GHz) allows a single design to cover all popular licensed radio spectra in the world. These advanced features enable next generation consumer services such as gaming, video and voice conferencing, streaming media applications, as well as video posting and sharing (e.g.YouTube). The PM8801 WiZIRD 1Tx/2Rx integrates a single transmit and two receive radio paths, as well as Multi-Band support, and is ideal for WiMAX Wave2 subscriber equipment such as CPE and laptop devices. The WiZIRD family is powered by PMC-Sierra’s “Extend Range, Rate and Roaming Architecture” (EXTRRRA), which enables WiMAX service providers to expand coverage areas with minimum capital expenditure, increase the data rate using full 2Tx/2Rx MIMO capability, and support global roaming.
PMC-Sierra also announced a collaboration with Sequans Communications, a leading WiMAX baseband chip supplier, to integrate its WiZIRD RF IC family with Sequans’ advanced SQN1130 and SQN2130 subscriber station and base station chips. The collaboration has yielded best-of-breed Mobile WiMAX product designs, including Multi-Band CPE, Femtocell, and Mobile Station. These complete solutions address OEM/ODM needs to deliver the carrier class end products required for high-performance, cost-effective and quality-driven WiMAX deployments.
“PMC-Sierra’s Multi-Band and 2Tx/2Rx WiZIRD RF IC family meshes perfectly with both our SQN2130 Base Station and SQN1130 Mobile Station baseband chips, delivering the high performance Femtocell, CPE and Mobile Station designs required to drive worldwide WiMAX adoption,” said Bernard Aboussouan, vice president of marketing at Sequans Communications.
Extending WiMAX Range, Rate and Roaming Capabilities
Global WiMAX service providers need to expand their coverage area with minimal capital investment. The versatility of PMC-Sierra’s PM8800 WiZIRD 2Tx/2Rx allows the same RF IC device to be used in both Femtocell base station and subscriber station designs. With the combined volume of CPE and infrastructure markets, cost-effective WiMAX Femtocell base stations can be designed and deployed to extend network coverage. The increase of multimedia content sharing over the Internet requires high downlink and uplink bandwidth. Using PM8800 WiZIRD 2Tx/2Rx’s full MIMO capability, advanced Wave2+ Mobile Stations can offer higher uplink and downlink data rates over existing solutions. With its Multi-Band feature, the WiZIRD product family covers the popular licensed spectra planned for WiMAX deployment around the globe and enables OEMs and ODMs to address multiple geographies with a single design.
“Global WiMAX deployment is at a crossroads today, and many of the challenges to large scale deployment can only be addressed by an innovative RF IC solution,” said Tom Sun, vice president and general manager for PMC-Sierra’s Broadband Wireless Division. “PMC-Sierra’s WiZIRD product family with its EXTRRRA architecture is the only RF IC solution that can extend range coverage, increase data rate and enable global roaming.”
The PM8800 WiZIRD 2Tx/2Rx is the industry’s highest density WiMAX RF IC solution integrating full 2Tx/2Rx MIMO capability, Multi-Band support, direct-conversion ZIF RF transceiver, analog and digital converters, and an industry-standard JEDEC JESD207 compliant baseband digital interface in a single device. The dual-radio path PM8800 WiZIRD 2Tx/2Rx eliminates the need for multiple radio devices and provides programmability to support multiple frequency bands for worldwide WiMAX roaming. The device delivers up to 64QAM QPSK modulation for both Tx and Rx paths at 0dBm output power level with an EVM rating that addresses a complete spectrum of WiMAX solutions from base station applications to mobile subscriber solutions. The PM8800 features:
- Low-power dual-receivers and dual-transmitters;
- Dual-band transceiver covering the 2.3-2.7 GHz and 3.3-3.8 GHz spectra;
- Direct-conversion ZIF design;
- Support for 802.16e-2005 and 802.16-2004 IEEE standards;
- Configurable channel bandwidths of 3.5 MHz, 5 MHz, 7 MHz, 8.75 MHz, 10 MHz, 14 MHz and 20 MHz;
- Integrated DCXO supports AFC with no external components;
- Flexible baseband device interface options: digital parallel I/Q interface (JEDEC JESD207) or analog I/Q;
- Integrated analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters;
- Integrated transmitter baluns; and
- Integrated hardware support for calibration.
The PM8801 WiZIRD 1Tx/2Rx offers similar functionality to the PM8800 WiZIRD 2Tx/2Rx, but integrates a single transmit and two receive branches, Multi-Band support and analog I/Q interfaces. The devices are software and hardware compatible.
EN-Genius Says…
Although the PM8801 nickname (WiZIRD) conjures up visions of Rincewind, the cowardly, magically-challenged anti-hero in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, it represents a major step in WiMAX’s long journey from a good idea to commercial success. If they work as-advertised, these cost-effective, easy-to-implement high-performance radios for both femtocell and subscriber equipment will serve as essential nutrients for the WiMAX industry as it grows from limited trials to regional deployments. PMC has made several smart architectural and design-level decisions that I think should allow the radios to deliver on their ambitious performance claims, but I’ll tell you what I learned during my briefing and let you be the judge.
I was pleased to see the PMC RF designers use a performance-oriented architecture to build this radio that covers both global WiMAX bands (2.3 GHz - 2.7 GHz and 3.23 GHz - 3.8 GHz). For one thing, it uses separate zero-IF Tx/Rx chains for each frequency band that share a common DSXO-based LO source -- a solid, conservative approach (see Fig. 1). WiZIRD eliminates the dc offset inherent in direct-conversion systems using a clever hybrid analog/digital system that’s distributed through the length of the receive chain. The DSXO uses a low cost 46-MHz crystal which can be pulled under digital control to match the base station reference, eliminating the need for a more costly TCXO.
 I suspect that any extra silicon real estate it takes to implement the dual RF chains will more than pay for itself in performance as well as in reduced BOM costs. In fact, PMC has gone out of its way to reduce the so-called solution cost by integrating as many passive components as possible, including the entire transmit Balun. The radio also features digitally-tunable on-chip filters that deliver Butterworth style response and lets WiZRD support channel widths ranging from 3.5 MHz to 20 MHz to accommodate the many different usage profiles that WiMAX is designed for.
The PM8800 should be able to hook up to nearly any WiMAX baseband element, thanks to its dual-mode RF interface. It can use either standard analog I/Q signals or support a digital baseband interface using a set of integrated ADCs/DACs. The simpler PM8801 2X1 chip has an analog-only interface and is featured in a reference design for a mobile subscriber-side receiver based on the Sequans SQ1130 baseband/MAC chip. PMC says it’s working on a reference design for a femtocell system based on the PM8800 that uses its digital interface to talk to the Sequans new SQN2130 that debuted this week.
PMC’s decision to offer separate radio chips that are optimized for the different requirements of subscriber-side and infrastructure-side applications should help bring down BOM and assembly costs to the point where they can support high-volume manufacturing and deployment. Likewise, the chipset's high levels of integration and digital tuning features are indicators that PMC has worked closely with ODMs and other stakeholders to make the reference designs easy to customize and produce for a particular application.
Although this is PMC-Sierra’s first venture into WiMAX, they have earned a relatively low Vapor Index Rating. This is in part due to their previous activity with other wireless products such as their Paladin digital signal correction processors, and the fact that the chips are actually sampling as of this writing.
The PM8800 and PM8801 are both sampling in MLF/QFN-108 with pricings of $15 and $10, respectively, both in 10-k piece lots.
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