First Ever 3G Calls over a Software Basestation

picoChip Designs says that it has made a 3G call using a software-defined basestation - a world first. The fully 3GPP compliant "carrier class" basestation was designed in-house and implemented in a matter of weeks on the company's technology platform of picoArray devices, a complete design toolchain and comprehensive UMTS software reference designs.

The call was made from a standard Ubinetics Test Mobile (TM100) to a Node B basestation implemented on picoArrays, to a controller and core network. The system is capable of supporting the full set of 3G voice, data and video services. It can be upgraded entirely in software to new releases of the standard - or even as a "multi-lingual" basestation to implement different standards on the same hardware such as GSM, cdma2000, TD-SCDMA or 802.20.

CEO, Dr. Rodger Sykes, said, "Making a full 3G voice call via a product class unit is a milestone achievement for picoChip. The sheer speed of the development is a powerful testament to the completeness and efficiency of our approach. Operators will see the benefits from the flexibility, removing the need to worry about ever-changing standards and cripplingly expensive "fork lift upgrades". Manufacturers will see the benefits in time to market savings, as well as the revenue opportunities from selling upgrades and improvements. Both benefit from the cost reductions picoChip bring to the market."

Co-Founder and CTO, Doug Pulley, added, " We didn't pay several billion for a licence, so we can't broadcast over the airwaves, but if we could this basestation could be used with 3G handsets available in the shops today. This is truly a "ready to go" basestation, demonstrating the processing power of the picoArray device and efficiency of the development environment. The fact is that we can supply our OEM customers with a complete WCDMA software reference design - but for those who need proprietary elements and to include their own IP, the flexibility is there."

The system complies with Release 4.2.0 Sept 2001 of the 3G standard (the most common revision for current deployment and for interoperability with handsets) and has been fully tested to TS25.215 and TS25.104. Support for Release 5 is now under development, including the newest high speed data mode (HSDPA - up to 14.2Mbps data rate).

The next revision of the demonstration software will include multi-standard/multi-mode functionality. Standards currently under development at picoChip include TDD, TD-SCDMA, 802.20 (MBWA) and other wireless air interfaces."

Posted to the site on 29th April 2003