SEQUANS Communications, a leading WiMAX chip supplier, introduced its newest WiMAX chip, the SQN2130, said to be the industry’s first PHY and MAC ASIC optimized for Mobile WiMAX base stations.
The SQN2130, based on IEEE 802.16e-2005 standards, is WiMAX Forum Wave 2 ready and delivers full 2X2 MIMO with industry-leading high throughput. The release of the SQN2130 chip for base stations follows Sequans’ earlier release of their SQN1130 chip for clients. Sequans claims it is the only Mobile WiMAX chipmaker today supplying both base station and subscriber station chips.
The SQN2130 features a low cost, low power design enables the manufacture of any size base station—femto, pico, micro, or multi-sector macro—in TDD or FDD duplexing mode. In addition to advanced MIMO, the SQN2130 supports hybrid-ARQ Category 4. It can sustain the full line rates with throughput of more than 35 Mbps, supporting several thousand subscriber stations.
The SQN2130 has already won several key customers. Sequans says they include existing customers migrating from Sequans’ SQN2110 FPGA solution, and new soon-to-be-announced customers that include world-leading equipment manufacturers with global deployment plans.
Competitor Beceem is also flouting High Performance WiMAX Chips. Beeceem also uses the high performance WiMAX Forum Profile, called HARQ (Hybrid ARQ), which is a variation of the ARQ error control method. It is said to perform better than ordinary ARQ, particularly over wireless channels and is generally implemented by hardware.
Hybrid Automatic Repeat ReQuest (HARQ), is a technique that enables fast recovery from transmission errors. By storing defective packets and then combining them with subsequent retransmissions of the same packet, effective speed is increased. HARQ is a particularly useful feature when users experience weak or rapidly changing channel conditions, as often found when traveling at high speeds, during hand-off between cells, or at cell edges.
“Our HARQ implementation is one of the key features that allows operators to maximize network performance, and it also highlights the maturity and leadership of our Mobile WiMAX chipsets”, said Lars Johnsson, vice president of Business Development for Beceem. HARQ also provides support to tunneling/aggregation operation, and has been accepted into IEEE 802.16j draft standard (for relays) and the IEEE 802.16m (for 100Mbps mobility). Beceem’s BCS200 chipset samples and reference design kits are immediately available.
Intel’s WiMAX Connection 2250 is a low-cost system-on-chip that supports IEEE 802.16-2004 and IEEE 802.16e-2005, enabling WiMAX modems for use with fixed or mobile networks. When combined with the Intel WiMAX Multi-Band Radio or third party RF chips, the Intel 2250 enables manufacturers to create a broad range of WiMAX modems and residential gateways, eventually into phones by 2009.
Meanwhile, Canada-based Wavesat and China-based ZTE Corp. have agreed to jointly conduct WiMAX interoperability tests and to support R&D activities with the Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ETS) in Montreal and the Shanghai Research Center for Wireless Communications (WiCo).
The two companies are jointly conducting interoperability between ZTE base stations and end-user terminal equipment such as PC plug-in cards and handsets Powered by Wavesat mobile WiMAX chipset. Wavesat and ZTE are collaborating to accelerate interoperability testing of Mobile WiMAX solutions based on IEEE 802.16e standard and in compliance with WiMAX Forum interoperability profiles.
Related DailyWireless articles include; Beceem Flouts High Performance WiMAX Chips, Testing Mobile WiMAX Chips, NextWave Announces Mobile WiMAX Chips and Sprint WiMAX: It’s Called “Xohm”.
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