Mindspeed’s dual-mode small cell SoCs bring Picochip’s 3G technology to high-performance Transcede LTE platform

Mobile World Congress 2012, NEWPORT BEACH, USA: Mindspeed Technologies Inc., the industry leader in technology for small cell base stations, announced the most advanced system-on-chip (SoC) solution for dual-mode concurrent 3G and long-term evolution (LTE) operation.

Mindspeed’s latest additions to its Transcede family of SoCs are sampling now, and extend the company’s small cell product portfolio to include solutions for residential, enterprise and metro infrastructure segments. The products will incorporate widely deployed 3G technology from Picochip, which Mindspeed acquired in January.

Mindspeed's Transcede family of processors are complete NodeB and eNodeB SoC solutions that support concurrent 3G and LTE processing in a single device, including time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA)/ evolved high speed packet access (HSPA+) and both frequency division duplexing LTE (FDD-LTE) and time division duplexing LTE (TDD-LTE), with a roadmap to LTE-Advanced (LTE-A).

Combining 3G and LTE processing capabilities into a single chip is more cost effective for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and the inclusion of a carrier-class physical-layer (PHY) software solution for both 3G and LTE will accelerate time to market, while simplifying development and reducing risk. The Transcede T22xx series comes in product variants targeting residential, small office/home office (SOHO) and small enterprise applications. Multiple T33xx series options are available for enterprise, metro and pico applications.

"We are moving quickly to combine Mindspeed’s and Picochip’s expertise and portfolios into an offering that is uniquely positioned to help carriers address the challenge of relentlessly growing data demand,” said Raouf Y. Halim, CEO of Mindspeed.

“Our new dual-mode solutions will enable operators to support both 3G and LTE in a single unit, dramatically improving their business case by delivering twice the benefit at half the traditional per-node opex and capex costs. The Transcede devices will also enable operators to improve existing 3G network quality, while providing more capacity for their subscriber base without the need for additional investments.”

Mindspeed’s T22xx and T33xx solutions support all 3GPP standards, combining the company’s production-ready LTE PHY software with Picochip’s field-proven HSPA software on Mindspeed’s optimized LTE platform. Picochip has deployed more than one million 3G product units with associated PHY software, and Mindspeed has won nearly 30 customer designs for its Transcede platform.

By offering the two companies’ small cell technologies in a single, market-leading multi-mode platform, Mindspeed will enable wireless carriers to upgrade their 3G networks to support what AT&T recently estimated has been a 5000 percent increase in data demand over the past three years alone. Small cells are seen as a crucial component for meeting this demand by maximizing use of today’s limited available radio spectrum.