Agilent, picoChip, mimoOn Work on 3GPP LTE Femtocell

By Raju Shanbhag

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Agilent Technologies (News - Alert) Inc. today announced that, with the help of its MXA signal analyzer VSA test solutions, engineers from Agilent, picoChip and mimoOn have successfully tested a 3GPP LTE (News - Alert) femtocell reference design.

 

The three companies say they’ve come together to ensure that the tests of their reference design meet the requirements of the LTE standard in development.

 

To create high-quality products for the LTE market, engineers need the complete functionality and performance test requirements. Agilent says the company is fully committed to fulfill this need as the advances in testing for femtocells will significantly contribute to the market delivery of the technology.

 

The Agilent 89600 Series Vector Signal Analysis software and its new 3GPP LTE modulation analysis option include test solutions used to validate the femtocell reference design.

 

With this, RF and baseband engineers working on early LTE devices get the industry’s most comprehensive signal analysis solution for physical layer testing and troubleshooting, according to the company. For Node B (News - Alert) infrastructure as well as end-user equipment prototype designs, the Agilent 3GPP LTE VSA option provides LTE signal analysis from the analog or digital baseband through to the RF antenna, company officials say.

 

Officials say that mimoOn provides software defined radio solutions for advanced wireless standards. The company has also developed the reference design code to run on picoChip’s (News - Alert) multicore DSP platform. With the help of these reference designs, OEMs can lower development costs because they can focus their resources on adding value and differentiating their products. These designs also allow OEMs to achieve faster time-to-market, are future-proof and can be upgraded as the LTE standard is refined and updated, according to the company.

 

A of femtocell technology, picoChip recently announced the availability of the industry’s first LTE femtocell and picocell reference designs, the PC8608 Home eNodeB and PC8618 eNodeB respectively.

 

“LTE is the next market for picoChip,” said Guillaume d’Eyssautier, president and chief executive officer of picoChip. “We are the only femtocell silicon vendor with operator commitment, and it is crucial that we continue to leverage that at every stage. Simply put, the two-year experience lead that we have over the competition in femtocells, plus our industry-leading expertise in WiMax, will sustain our LTE customers’ competitive edge -- accelerating their programs, improving development efficiency and reducing cost.”