Three-core DSP targets LTE infrastructure

LONDON — Texas Instruments has started sampling to select wireless infrastructure designers a three-core DSP with associated software library for the development of basestation devices supporting all the algorithms for next generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) basestations.

Dubbed the TMS320TCI6487, and running at 3.6GHz, TI suggests the part offers OEMs the performance to run all the complex algorithms for LTE and, crucially, extend their current base station platforms to include new features and more complex algorithms without designing a new board.

Josef Alt, business development manager for wireless infrastructure for TI in Europe, suggests the major infrastructure providers, many of whom are already TI customers, “will be ready in time with operators’ timescales for implementing LTE. Whether the handset makers will be ready is another case --- in previous generations of upgrading to the latest cellular standards, they have not been.”

Alts said to achieve a successful LTE deployment, robust software is a requirement. TI’s third generation LTE software library release includes optimized functions for all necessary signal processing elements. The company has also released software to use on-chip acceleration to support decoding the uplink channel quality information (CQI), thereby saving up to 1GHz of DSP processing – a savings equivalent to adding an additional core to the DSP.

Alt told EE Times Europe a fourth generation software library will be available by the second quarter of this year, that will be fully compatible with the LTE stack and which will again allow OEMs to differentiate their designs to grab a share of the LTE market, which he suggests will take off in volume in 2010.

A complete physical layer reference design incorporating TI’s LTE library, will be available from Tata Elxsi. TI also offers a reference platform from Commagility, enabling customers to quickly evaluate their networks and optimize system design, speeding LTE deployments. In addition to the reference platform, TI also provides a complete analog signal chain for LTE, including data converters, RF products, power management, clocks and amplifiers.

The TCI6487 contains three DSP cores, each running at 1.2 GHz and the necessary accelerators and peripheral interfaces which are optimized for cellular infrastructure products.

Each DSP core contains one RSA unit which can accelerate the decoding of LTE CQI information – a savings of up to 1GHz per sector for 20MHz LTE systems, says Alt.

As well as the LTE software libraries, TI provides optimized libraries for WiMAX and WCDMA for on-going multi-standard developments.

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