Freescale doubles dsp performance with baseband accelerator
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Freescale Semiconductor has announced two next generation products that are said deliver more than twice the throughput of their predecessor.
The MSC8157 and MSC8158, based on Freescale's SC3850 core running at 1.2GHz, are targeted at a range of next generation communications systems. Both are said to improve data throughput while reducing costs by integrating technologies that have previously required asics and fpgas.
Scott Aylor, director of dsp products for Freescale, said: "Customers and operators are looking to bridge between 3G and 4G networks. The 8157 enables this and is the first single chip Layer 1 software definable radio. In effect, it's a superset device optimised for performance in LTE and 3G networks. The 8158 is a cost optimised solution for 3G W-CDMA."
According to Aylor, the devices more than double the throughput performance of the MSC8156. "This is important," he said, "because customers are under pressure with the increasing volume of data, as well as cost and performance."
However, the performance increase is achieved without increasing the number of cores – there are six SC3850s in each part. "We have made improvements in on chip acceleration," Aylor continued, "with an upgraded MAPLE block. This handles the more computationally intensive tasks, including MIMO processing."
Floating point MIMO processing is handled by the MAPLE-B2 block, improving latency over floating point dsp core implementations. The MAPLE–B2 block additionally provides a single hardware platform that supports multimode operation and allows for the adoption of additional standards through a software switch.
"We've implemented a floating point machine inside the MAPLE block," Aylor continued, "which can do matrix inversion. That allows a doubling of throughput."
The devices, which will be manufactured on a 45nm process, will sample in Q1 2011 and are planned to enter volume towards the end of 2011 in order to catch what Aylor called 'the 2012 volume window'.
