A Family of Single Chip Solutions for Next Generation Macrocell BTS and Smart Radio Heads
SAN JOSE, Calif., and BARCELONA, Spain, March 2, 2015 – Cavium, Inc., a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing for enterprise, data center, cloud, wired and wireless networking, today announced the introduction of a family of highly integrated single chip solutions that enable a new category of Macrocells and Smart Radio Heads supporting a wide range of deployment scenarios and setting a new bar for cost, performance, power and footprint. The OCTEON Fusion-M family is a scalable architecture that ranges from the single chip CNF75xx macrocell to the single chip CNF74xx for use in Smart Radio Heads.
Market Dynamics for Radio Networks and Cloud RAN
With the ever increasing demand for data and more concentrated and denser networks, operators are increasingly looking at ways to make the RAN more efficient and more scalable, as part of a wider trend towards virtualization of wireless networks through NFV and SDN technologies. Analysts predict that the overall wireless network infrastructure market encompassing macrocell RAN, HetNet, Small Cells and Cloud RAN will witness tremendous growth of 45% CAGR over the coming years, reaching $104 Billion in annual spending by the end of 2020.
Mobile networks’ need to accommodate fast traffic growth, driven by heavier usage of individual subscribers and by the spread of wireless connectivity to new classes of IoT devices. The current architecture of the macrocell BTS utilizes a combination of CPUs, DSPs, FPGAs and ASICs which significantly add to the latency, footprint, power consumption and cost. The macro BTS can benefit from much higher silicon integration delivering higher performance while slashing the cost and power for next generation systems.
Current Radio Heads perform a limited function of capturing and transmitting the RF data to macro BTS or the Cloud RAN typically over dedicated dark fiber that is not readily available in all geographies. Radio Heads can benefit from integration of Layer 1 functionality to enable seamless virtualization of the upper layers in a Cloud RAN deployment utilizing the existing switched fabric in existence today. Future networks will continue to deploy macrocell BTS augmented with Cloud RAN for additional scalability and enterprise small cells for coverage and capacity.
New Category of Single Chip Macrocell and Smart Radio Heads: Laying the foundation of Dense HetNets, Cloud RAN and 5G standards
The OCTEON Fusion-M processors are single chip solutions for macro BTS and Smart Radio Heads that target next generation radio networks including 3GPP LTE Rel11/12. The key features include highly optimized full custom processor cores, a highly efficient caching subsystem, high memory bandwidth and a very flexible and high performance PHY. Cavium has a long history of delivering high-performance multi-core workload-optimized processors for networking, security and data plane processing applications through their highly successful OCTEON®, OCTEON Fusion®, NITROX® and Neuron Search® processor families.
Introducing the OCTEON Fusion-M CNF75xx Family of Processors
OCTEON Fusion-M CNF75xx: Macrocell-on-a-chip
The CNF75xx family of processors is a full L1-L7 implementation supporting from high capacity picocells at 800 simultaneous users all the way up to multi sector macrocells with up to 3600 simultaneous users. Additionally, multiple OCTEON Fusion-M CNF75xx chips can be cascaded for even denser deployments or higher order MIMO. The CNF 75xx integrates highly optimized custom 64 bit MIPS cores and multiple VLIW DSP engines along with a host of hardware accelerators for the wireless modem pipeline, network processing and traffic shaping. This family is designed to allow system OEMs and operators to build next generation networks in both macrocell and Cloud RAN deployments while retaining the flexibility to evolve into the new 5G standard.
Feature Highlights:
· Highly integrated multi-protocol single chip 12 sector 24T24R MIMO with up to 16 cores running up to 2.0 GHz core frequency
· Simultaneous LTE. LTE-A (FDD/TDD) , HPSA+, GSM operation
· Supports a range of user counts from 800 user picocell configuration to 3,600 macrocell mode simultaneous active users
· The first commercially available 3GPP LTE Rel 11 capable (upgradable to Rel 12) SoC
· Highly configurable Wireless Baseband Module based on VLIW DSP cores, comprehensive PHY hardware accelerators, custom XBAR and PHY Shared memory
· Integrated I/O capacity including CPRI / JESD204B,10GE, SGMII, SRIO v2.1, PCIe v3.0
· Very high performance, low latency path for passing COMP data between multiple OCTEON Fusion-M devices
Introducing the OCTEON Fusion-M CNF74xx Family of Processors
OCTEON Fusion-M CNF74xx: Smart Remote Radio Head-on-a-chip
The CNF74xx integrates eight 64 Bit MIPS cores and a very flexible, high throughput L1 wireless modem sub-system, the OCTEON Fusion-M CNF74xx is the first commercial device in the world designed specifically for Smart Radio Head Cloud RAN deployments. The architecture of the CNF74xx allows the implementation of any of the popular CRAN splits, including MAC-PHY, RLC and CPRI. The CNF74xx Smart Radio Head working in conjunction with standard Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS), Cavium’s ThunderX™ hardware provides a full solution for all variants of Cloud RAN.
Feature Highlights:
· Highly integrated multi-protocol Smart Radio Head supporting 12 sector 24T24R MIMO with up to 8 cores running up to 2.0 GHz core frequency
· Simultaneous LTE. LTE-A (FDD/TDD) , HPSA+, GSM operation
· Allows any Cloud RAN configuration, including various MAC-PHY spits, RLC split and CPRI
· In combination with the ThunderX COTS sever processor supports very high simultaneous active users in excess of 12,000
· The first commercially available 3GPP LTE Rel 11 capable (upgradable to Rel 12) SoC
· Fully configurable Wireless Baseband Module based on VLIW DSP cores, comprehensive PHY hardware accelerators, custom XBAR and PHY shared memory
· Integrated I/O capacity including CPRI / JESD204B,10GE,SRIO v2.1
· Very high performance, low latency path for passing COMP data between multiple OCTEON Fusion-M devices
“Cavium is a proven Wireless Infrastructure supplier with carrier-proven solutions ranging from small cells to Macro BTS to EPC and Cloud RAN applications,” said Syed Ali, President and CEO of Cavium Inc. “Operators require a portfolio of base stations that address their different needs: enterprise, urban, metro-cell, macrocell and CRAN. With the OCTEON FUSION-M and ThunderX, Cavium is unique in addressing all of those segments through a coherent portfolio of highly optimized solutions. Our new chips extend the eco-system in two radical directions: up to macrocell class and out to the radio node required in C-RANs.”
“With the introduction of the OCTEON Fusion-M family, Cavium has extended its presence in the wireless infrastructure market where it already has deployments from the core to the RAN,” said Jag Bolaria Principal Analyst at The Linley Group. “The OCTEON Fusion-M products enable more efficient macro base stations and advance an exciting new category of Smart Radio Heads for Cloud RAN.”
“Cavium has leveraged its multiple generations of world class IP to engineer OCTEON Fusion-M, a highly integrated family of wireless processors that provides a level of integration, performance and power/user unequaled in the industry. The OCTEON Fusion-M family are the most flexible processors for wireless communication and designed to not only encompass existing 3GPP standards but also new versions as they become ratified. They are ideally suited for HetNet applications and 5G roll outs,” said Raj Singh, General Manager of Cavium’s Wireless Broadband Group.
