Ikanos and DSP Group demo multi-service residential gateway with DECT base station capabilities

PARIS, FRANCE, Broadband World Forum Europe 2009: Ikanos Communications Inc., a leading provider of advanced broadband semiconductor and software products for the digital home, announced that it has joined forces with DSP Group, Inc. to demonstrate a reference design for a multi-service residential gateway with fully integrated Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) capabilities.

The DECT/CAT-iq module from DSP Group, a leading global provider of wireless chipset solutions for converged communications at home, combined with Ikanos' Fusiv Vx180 integrated gateway processor, is designed to enable network equipment manufacturers to quickly bring to market a platform that supports cordless telephony as a part of a residential gateway offering.

"One of the important differentiators in the newest-generation of residential gateways is integrated cordless telephony," said Mitch Kahn, vice president of Corporate Development at Ikanos. "As service providers seek to deliver more value-added offerings, built-in DECT communications is necessary. The offering from DSP Group and Ikanos can help manufacturers deliver products with this capability more quickly than ever before."

The reference design includes the Ikanos Fusiv Vx180 gateway processor and DSP Group's DECT/CAT-iq Module. The Fusiv Vx180 device combines Ikanos' industry leading VDSL2 customer premises equipment (CPE) PHY and its widely deployed Fusiv network processor architecture into a power and space optimized chipset that supports all key types of DSL technology, including ADSL, ADSL2+ and VDSL2.

The Fusiv Vx180 also combines accelerator processor (AP) engines for data path functions with a MIPS-based CPU core, resulting in the preservation of host CPU processing power for enabling powerful value-added applications.

DSP Group's DECT/CAT-iq Module enables superior voice coverage and wideband audio (HD voice). Based on DSP Group's single-chip architecture, the low-cost and small form-factor cordless base station module can be integrated into broadband residential gateways, such as integrated access devices (IAD), set-top boxes (STBs), IP office PBXs and passive optical network (PON) modems. DSP Group's DECT chipsets are CAT-iq 2.0 compliant and support all worldwide digital cordless technologies.

"The combination of Ikanos' Vx180 chipset and our DECT/CAT-iq Module into one system will give network equipment manufacturers a competitive edge when developing a fully-featured multi-service residential gateway," said Oz Zimerman, corporate vice president of Marketing at DSP Group. "The integrated reference design delivers the performance and flexibility that is required by manufacturers for developing gateways that meet the needs of service providers around the world."

The reference platform from DSP Group and Ikanos is being shown at Broadband World Forum Europe 2009.