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NXP proposes multi-mode LTE modem architecture

Using Software-defined-radio techniques to attack the problem of proliferating standards, NXP has built its first announced implementation of the Embedded Vector Processor. The company announced the EVP concept late in 2007, and has now developed it into a multi-mode baseband platform that will provide the modem function for LTE (long-term-evolution) cellular terminals, spanning LTE, HSPA, UMTS, EDGE, and GPRS/GSM standards. NXP is calling this platform the “basis of a next-generation software-defined-radio-system solution”. It will achieve data rates of 150 Mbit/sec downlink and 50 Mbit/sec uplink.

NXP says that an EVP modem will support multi-standard baseband processing with negligible area and power penalties, and that it is already capable of implementing today’s preliminary LTE specifi cations, including the MIMO (multiple-input/ multiple-output) aspects. As a softwareprogrammable solution, it will be able to conform to the specifi cation as it evolves, NXP adds; specifi cally, it is “fully compliant to the current draft of the 3GPP R8 standard,” the company adds.

The approach NXP proposes to attack the problem of multiple and varied air interfaces in a single terminal is to subdivide them into categories based broadly on data rate. This groups together, for example, NFC (near-fi eld communication), Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wibree and UWB: then, there would be a reconfi gurable RF channel for cellular communications— and, for high data rates, a reconfi gurable RF channel for high-bandwidth applications such as WiFi, WiMax and LTE. The EVP, complementing conventional DSP and microprocessor cores, will provide the highly parallel computational resources for NXP’s vision of the programmable modem.

NXP, www.nxp.com.