Beceem Communications says they are sampling the first silicon for Wave 2 of the WiMax broadband wireless standard, based on the IEEE 802.16-2005 mobile wireless standard.
The BCS200 chip set uses the same baseband and RF partitioning as the original MS120 chipset, but offers 25-Mbit/second throughput along with a 25 percent reduction in power consumption and 60 percent reduction in footprint.
Lars Johnsson, vice president of business development at Beceem, said that many prototypes were developed by competitors based on the original 802.16e spec, “but we are not anticipating anyone else to be in full sampling of Wave 2 yet.”
The BCS200 adds more-advanced MIMO and beam-forming features with a direct-conversion radio architecture in both 2- and 3-GHz bands. Medium Access Control functions are implemented on an embedded processor in the baseband chip.
ZTE uses Beceem’s MS120 chipset in its PC Cards (right) as does Accton, one of Taiwan’s leading Original Device Manufacturers.
Sequans and Motorola are teaming up. Sequans says its SQN1110 was designed to exceed WiMAX Forum Wave 2 certification and should be available early next year.
TeleCIS Wireless (above), a developer of WiMAX fixed, portable and mobile broadband wireless chips, says it has begun shipments of its 2×2 MIMO WiMAX SoC. TeleCIS claims the TCW 1620 is the only WiMAX ASIC on the market with dual receive and dual transmit support in a single ASIC, delivering up to 15dB of additional performance as compared to other products currently on the market, for up to 2 1/2 times the range for self installed CPEs.
Texas Instruments has also incorporated Wave 2 functions with support for MIMO and beamforming which are defined as part of the WiMAX Forum Wave 2 feature set. TI’s software library is a key component of its 1 GHz, DSP-based wireless infrastructure solution supporting the evolution of the mobile WiMAX standard.
The WiMAX Forum performs interoperability testing. The first wave of Mobile certification testing is about to get underway, with market availability of WiMAX Forum Certified mobile WiMAX products beginning in early 2007. The second wave will include advanced features such as beamforming, MIMO and handoff.
