Step Towards A 5G Software-Defined RAN Over A Fully Open-Source Parallel RISC-V Architecture (ETH Zurich)


A technical paper titled "Efficient Parallelization of 5G-PUSCH on a Scalable RISC-V Many-core Processor" was published by researchers at ETH Zurich. Abstract (partial) "5G Radio access network disaggregation and softwarization pose challenges in terms of computational performance to the processing units. At the physical layer level, the baseband processing computational effort is typicall... » read more

Open RAN Phase 2


I first wrote about Open RAN in my post Fourth 4G Network Goes Live in Japan. Open RAN is a program driven by a group of European operators to build specifications for common architecture instead of getting "locked into" the closed architectures sold by the big base-station vendors such as Nokia, Samsung, and Ericsson. It is analogous to what servers went through over the last few decades, m... » read more

Increasing Performance With Data Acceleration


Increasing demand for functions that require a relatively high level of acceleration per unit of data is providing a foothold for in-line accelerator cards, which could mean new opportunities for some vendors and a potential threat for others. For years, either CPUs, or CPUs with FPGA accelerators, met most market needs. But the rapid increase in the volume of data everywhere, coupled with t... » read more

Open RAN Direct RF Sampling Radio Transceiver Architectures For Massive MIMO


With the exponential increase in wireless traffic, mobile networks are transformed into more software-driven, virtualized, flexible, intelligent, and energy efficient systems. These trends have stimulated significant change in the core network with the advent of software defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV), which have enabled building more agile and less expensive ... » read more

Power Amp Wars Begin For 5G


Demand is increasing for power amplifier chips and other RF devices for 5G base stations, setting the stage for a showdown among different companies and technologies. The power amplifier device is a key component that boosts the RF power signals in base stations. It's based on two competitive technologies, silicon-based LDMOS or RF gallium nitride (GaN). GaN, a III-V technology, outperforms ... » read more

Carriers Push Datacenter-Style Virtualization


The world’s largest telco carriers are leading a broad movement to bring data center-style virtualization to the core of their telecommunications networks. In an industry known for being extremely conservative when it comes to change, this one appears to be significant. The move has set off a scramble among a number of companies for unified control and forwarding plane designs, starting fr... » read more