5G small cell reference design serves indoor applications
A four-channel, small cell platform for high performance 5G applications, such as industrial private networks, cloud applications, and video streaming has been announced by CommAgility. The SC-RF4-5Gn78 standalone 5G small cell gNodeB platform is for indoor applications. The baseband and RF small cell platform includes four flexible RF channels, each offering up to 100MHz bandwidth, enabling 4×4 MIMO downlink operation and delivering gigabit throughput for high data rate 5G.
The SC-RF4-5Gn78 combines CommAgility’s SmallCellPHY-5G and SmallCellSTACK-5G software. It is based on NXP’s Layerscape and Layerscape Access processors and combines 16 Arm Cortex-A72 cores with NXP VSPA DSP cores, security, and wireless accelerators. The design is pre-integrated and tested to reduce development risk and effort, and optionally includes closed loop digital pre-distortion support for RF performance.
“Off the shelf, small cell equipment from Tier 1 suppliers do not have the flexibility to support complex tasks,” said Alfred Rodriguez, senior vice president and general manager at CommAgility.
The SC-RF4-5Gn78 can be licensed for customer modification to specific needs, or CommAgility can make such modifications. CommAgility can also customise its 5G software to the specific needs of each project, which simplifies development, cuts time to market, and reduces risk, claimed the company. The full software stack has been developed in-house, which allows CommAgility to adapt the platform for customer-selected 3GPP Release 16 and 17 features.
CommAgility’s software portfolio for 5G New Radio (NR) development includes pre-ported and validated physical layer (PHY) and stack software, a 5G core, and PHY reference chains. This simplifies the development of 5G small cells and private networks, said the company, and the software’s flexible architecture makes integration easier with hardware accelerators and libraries. Versions are available for both 5G gNodeB and UE product developers.
As well as the SC-RF4-5Gn78, CommAgility also offers the SC-RF2-5Gn78, a two-channel version, and the 5G Reference gNodeB, a pre-integrated reference design.
CommAgility is part of the Wireless Telecom Group.
