Mindspeed Technologies has unveiled two new members of the Transcede family of wireless baseband processors, extending its family of integrated system-on-chip (SoC) devices across all base station platforms for NxG mobile networks from picocells and enterprise femtocells to the largest macrocell implementations.
Mindspeed said that the expanded 3G/4G/long-term evolution (LTE) processor family includes the Transcede 3000 that is designed for small-cell 3G and 4G base stations; and the Transcede 4005 that is designed for 3G and 4G macrocell developers who want to combine its Layer 1 (L1) physical-layer (PHY) processing capabilities with an existing Layer Two (L2) media access control (MAC) processing offer.
According to Mindspeed, the Transcede family devices features include, Cortex A9 multi-core symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processors from ARM, coupled with new digital signal processors (DSPs) from CEVA. They also include built-in hardware accelerators for fixed functions such as 4G forward error correction (FEC), IP Security (IPSec) and radio ciphers, along with other key system features such as PCIe and dual gigabit ethernet.
The company said that the software developed on one Transcede device can be ported to other family members across a range of system platforms, including enterprise femtocell, picocell (indoor and outdoor), microcell and macrocell base stations.
The Transcede 3000 combines five CEVA DSPs and a single ARM Quad Core Cortex A9 processor core, and runs at 600MHz with less than 10W typical power consumption, while the Transcede 4005, with 10 CEVA DSPs and 10 Mindspeed app processors, runs at 750MHz and delivers the PHY processing performance needed in large 3G/4G/LTE macrocells.
Both the Transcede T3000 and T4005 SoCs are expected to be available in sample quantities in July 2010, and are packaged in 31mm-square high-performance flip-chip ball grid arrays (HFC-BGAs). Pricing in OEM volumes of 10,000 is $180 for T3000 and $250 for T4005.