The AMD wireless telecom partner ecosystem has more than doubled in the past year, bolstered by the integration of the AMD and Xilinx product lines as well as the creation of its new Telco Solutions testing lab in collaboration with VIAVI.
The formation of the Telco Solutions testing lab will help operators and telco solution providers to test, validate and scale computing resources to deliver on the demands from RAN and edge-to-core. The testing lab can support validation of end-to-end solutions, including both hardware to software to leverage the performance and power efficiencies of the latest AMD processors, Adaptive SoCs, SmartNICs, FPGAs and DPUs.
The VIAVI end-to-end testing suite was selected to provide the network test solution to analyse, develop and validate the impact of real-life conditions across an entire telco network and the testing lab will enable traffic simulation and generation across core, CU/DU, edge and RAN using both current and future AMD technologies to allow full functional and performance testing that meets current and future generation ecosystem requirements.
Based in Santa Clara, Calif., the Telco Solutions testing lab will bring in its first 5G ecosystem partners at the beginning of Q2 2023.
The ongoing adoption of 4G/5G AMD Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC and MPSoC radio technology has enabled new integrated remote radio unit designs and AMD is now expanding its Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC digital front-end (DFE) portfolio with two additions to the family: the Zynq UltraScale+ ZU63DR and ZU64DR devices.
These RFSoCs will enable the expansion and deployment of 4G/5G radios into markets around the globe where lower cost, power and spectrum-efficient radios are required to address increased wireless connectivity.
“AMD has made incredible progress in the radio market and is collaborating with over 15 radio system ecosystem partners designing O-RAN-based remote radio units for open interfaces using AMD Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoCs and MPSoCs,” said Salil Raje, senior vice president and general manager, Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group, AMD. “With our focus toward increasing 5G deployments, the new AMD Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoCs are especially cost-effective and energy-efficient, making them ideal for emerging global markets including rural and outdoor deployments.”
The ZU63DR specifically targets four transmit and four receive (4T4R) and dual band entry-level O-RAN radio unit (O-RU) applications. The ZU64DR is targeted for eight transmit and eight receive (8T8R) O-RU applications using the 3rd Generation Partner Project (3GPP) split-8 option which supports alternative and legacy radio unit architectures.
As part of the growing AMD telco ecosystem, AMD and Nokia are jointly announcing an expanded collaboration using 4th Gen AMD EPYC processor-based servers to deliver Nokia Cloud RAN solutions to help communications service providers achieve their most stringent energy efficiency goals.
“As part of our ambition to provide the best Cloud RAN solutions, we are excited to extend our collaboration with AMD. We are looking to take advantage of the 4th Gen AMD EPYC processor’s capabilities to further enhance Nokia’s Cloud RAN solutions,” said Pasi Toivanen, Head of Partner Cloud RAN Solutions at Nokia. “Communication service providers across 5G Core and Cloud RAN increasingly demand new levels of performance and energy efficiency within their 5G networks. Our work with AMD recognises the challenges faced by the telecommunications industry and helps to deliver on our partners’ and customers’ most ambitious energy efficiency targets.”
