Altera and China Mobile Research Institute announce joint efforts on next-gen C-RAN wireless technologies

SAN JOSE, USA: Altera Corp. announced a three-year strategic agreement with China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) to research and prototype next-generation green wireless network infrastructure solutions based on the Centralized Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architecture that leverages network function virtualization (NFV).

The agreement was signed on August 15 in Beijing, China at the 2014 International Mobile Internet Conference, which is organized and sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the three major Chinese operators including China Mobile.

Also at the event, Francis Chow, VP and GM of Altera’s Communications Business Unit, presented on how Altera FPGA technology is enabling green C-RAN architecture with an emphasis on performance, connectivity and scalability.

Co-operation between Altera and CMRI will center on joint research and development for centralized baseband processing of wireless base stations, with a goal of delivering lower power consumption, lower total operating costs and higher scalability than conventional infrastructure.

The new, jointly developed C-RAN architecture will enable operators to increase the spectrum efficiency and to add or upgrade processing capabilities with ease via NVF of the baseband processing resources. This allows operators to reduce their operating expense (OPEX) and create new business models while leveraging existing investments. FPGAs serve key roles in data processing acceleration, component connectivity and front-haul data transportation.

“Altera is key partner in our efforts to develop a new C-RAN architecture, and together we will work to develop new platforms and solutions for more efficient mobile Internet,” said Chih-Lin I, chief scientist, China Mobile Research Institute. “Altera’s technology and support will be of great value to CMRI as we conduct research together.”

“CMRI has shown great innovation in developing the C-RAN architecture as a way to reduce carrier network costs and manage the networks more efficiently,” said Francis Chow. “The pursuit of centralization, high efficiency and scalability in C-RAN is a perfect fit for our flexible FPGAs, software and IP, and we are honored to work with CMRI on future architectures.”

FPGAs are widely used in wireless network equipment due to their high performance and ability to adapt to rapidly changing industry standards. Altera programmable logic devices provide an ideal combination of processing power, flexibility, IP cores and easy-to-use development tools.