picoChip develops first public access femtocell solution

According to picoChip, the PC333 system on chip (SoC) device is the first femtocell chip to support 32 channels (scalable to 64) for simultaneous voice and HSPA+ data, the first to support MIMO, the first to support soft handover and the first to conform to the Local Area Basestation (LABS) standard. The company says this enables higher performance than any other femtocell solution. The device has been designed to enable small basestations for urban hot spots, city centres or public access to be made and deployed at a cost far lower than traditional approaches. Doug Pulley, cto of picoChip, believes the femtocell represents a significant step in bringing a complete 3GPP Release 8 Local Area 42Mbps HSPA+ basestation onto a single chip. LABS is the 3GPP definition for systems with higher performance than home basestations, allowing higher capacity, 120km/h mobility and 24dBm output power for greater than 2km range. The PC333 supports 32 channels, each with both voice and HSPA+ data and, with picoChip's smartSignaling technology, in excess of 400 simultaneous smartphone users. Two of the devices can also be cascaded to support 64 active channels. It will be sampling in Q4 2010. Pulley said: "Someday, all basestations will be made like this. With the PC333 we have extended the parameters of femtocell performance to levels that would traditionally have been considered as 'picocell' or even 'microcell'. This high performance coupled with zero touch provisioning means carriers can routinely deploy femtocells as part of their wide area network rollouts. We are already seeing the emergence of femtocells into rural and metropolitan-area basestations; the PC333 redefines the way femtocells are used and networks themselves are architected, leading to the dramatic growth of the basestation market."