Picochip and Wavesat achieve breakthrough in LTE interoperability testing

Picochip and Wavesat recently announced that they have successfully completed interoperability testing (IOT) between Picochip's PC960x LTE small cell base station solution and Wavesat's Odyssey 9000 series user equipment (UE) chipset. The completion of this series of LTE services and the arrival of the IOT milestone indicate that the two companies have successfully achieved their goal of providing end-to-end interoperable and complete performance.

"Open interoperability is critical to the success of any cellular technology," said Peter Jarich, service director at Current Analysis. "One thing is certain: interoperability generally develops over time. The fact that semiconductor reference designs are now mature enough and of sufficient quality to support end-to-end system testing is a motivating signal for LTE to progress and has the potential to accelerate market maturity. In a recent Current Analysis (November 2010) survey on femtocells, 94% of respondents from the femtocell ecosystem considered small cells to be critical to LTE deployments. Clearly, interoperable network and user equipment products are an important part of this."

Wavesat's first Odyssey 9000 chipset with CAT-3 performance (100 Mb/s downlink, 50 Mb/s uplink) can be used in user devices such as USB adapters, data cards, mobile phones and tablets/MIDs. These are verified with the PC9608/9 small cell base station development platform jointly developed by Picochip and Continuous Computing (CCPU) to connect to the network and commercial EPC gateway products.

The two companies announced a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on end-to-end LTE interoperability testing of their products in March 2010. This will help LTE network operators, system integrators and OEM/ODM system manufacturers benefit from integrated, tested technology including fully compliant/shippable eNodeB reference designs.

“Working with Wavesat has enabled the Picochip team at the Bath IoT Lab to quickly deliver capabilities and performance to a new level, even beyond our own expectations. The speed of integration has been particularly gratifying,” said David Maidment, Picochip’s Vice President of Product Management. “Picochip’s Home eNodeB reference platform is being tested by leading infrastructure vendors and network operators, and is showing promise for end-to-end interoperability between core networks and commercial user devices in the coming year.”

"Both our companies are committed to expanding the LTE ecosystem with fully functional femtocells, picocells and end-user devices," said Anil Barot, Wavesat vice president of marketing and business development. "These results demonstrate a proven reality: small cell systems and a wide range of commercial user devices will deliver high performance in the open market. Our joint efforts will give network equipment manufacturers and operators more confidence in deploying fully interoperable and pre-tested systems."

Femtocells and picocells in urban hot spots as well as sparsely populated rural areas can improve mobile voice and data services for commercial and residential customer terminals. They are becoming a vital component of 3G and 4G networks and are expected to play a key role in the rollout of LTE.

Mr. Barot and Wavesat CEO Mr. Raj Singh will be at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 5 to 8, 2011; Wavesat will also have its own conference room at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 14 to 17. Picochip will also have a booth at the Mobile World Congress in Hall 1, booth number 1D56.