Picocom uses Andes RISC-V core to design O-RAN SoC

Picocom has selected the AndesCore N25F RISC-V 32-bit core for its upcoming 5G small cell distributed unit (DU) system-on-chip (SoC).

Picocom is a 5G O-RAN baseband semiconductor company with extensive experience in the small cell sector.

Andes Technology is a leading supplier of high-performance, low-power compact 32/64-bit RISC-V CPU cores and a founding member of the RISC-V Alliance.

Picocom is advocating for an “open RAN” (5G Radio Access Network (RAN)), which would open up the supply chain to enable new suppliers to enter the market and compete.

With Andes high-performance cores, Picocom’s DU offload SoCs will provide the required flexibility, efficiency and performance to meet the challenges posed by 5G small cells.

“The Andes N25F 32-bit RISC-V core is small, but powerful,” said Peter Claydon, president of Picocom. “Due to its compact size, Picocom can use 32 of them in two clusters to provide flexible processing power for packet throughput at up to 25 Gbps line rate. Using a cluster of small RISC-Vs is more efficient than using a small number of larger cores. This clustered RISC-V approach allows us to retain maximum flexibility for future 5G NR standard changes while providing outstanding performance in very demanding applications.”

The RISC-V core N25F is a proven excellent solution for high-speed control tasks and floating-point intensive applications. We are glad that Picocom recognizes the advantages of N25F and leverages dozens of N25Fs in a cluster, along with the integrated AE350 platform to design its advanced 5G small cell SoCs.” said Dr. Hongmeng Su, CTO and Executive Vice President of Andes. “This proves once again that Andes’ RISC-V solution is ideal for meeting the demanding requirements of high-speed protocol control and provides outstanding performance for applications such as storage, networking and wireless communications.”

Claydon explained Picocom’s role in O-RAN: “Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei all have their own ASICs, which are expensive. Picocom is an O-RAN supporter of open architecture SoCs, which can allow more players to enter this market.”

Asked if there would be a difference in 5G performance between the big three networks and O-RAN networks, Claydon acknowledged that it would take some time for some of the O-RAN infrastructure vendors to reach the level of sophistication of equipment from Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia, but added: “The performance of a microcell isn’t going to be that much different.”