picoChip teams with Systems4Silicon to further support for advanced wireless and MIMO

Approved design center widens options for PHY support

Bath, England, 3 July 2007: - picoChip announced today that it has added Systems4Silicon as an approved design center for its picoArrayTM multi-core DSP. Systems4Silicon has a highly experienced team, capable of supporting customers with PHY, MIMO, PA linearization and RF design issues for advanced air interfaces applications, and already has considerable real-world experience with picoChip technology.

“Systems4Silicon is experienced in interpreting complex systems such as HSPA and WiMAX 802.16e. Their understanding of these standards, together with comprehensive knowledge of our architecture enables Systems4Silicon to offer clear time-to-market advantages to our customers,” said Guillaume d’Eyssautier, CEO and President at picoChip. “We are pleased to have them onboard to support the growing picoChip customer base.”

“We are delighted to be recognized by picoChip as an authorized design centre,” commented, Dr Paul Turner, Director of Engineering at Systems4Silicon. “These are exciting times! The performance of the picoArray opens up a new world of design opportunities for advanced wireless applications. Our deep understanding of optimal system partitioning and detailed knowledge of signal processing positions us well to support manufacturers looking to develop the next-generation of wireless systems.”
Systems4Silicon has significant expertise in researching and commercialising the newest wireless technologies. The team have worked on technologies for WCDMA (including HSDPA/HSUPA), WiMAX and 802.11n WiFi. Two areas of particular expertise are MIMO and PA linearization with adaptive predistortion (DPD) – both critical for the most sophisticated air-interfaces such as 16m and LTE.
picoChip is the only semiconductor company focussed on wireless infrastructure, and provides software-defined radio solutions to address the key challenges of cost, development time and flexibility for the next generation of wireless systems. The company’s multi-core processors deliver a world-beating price/performance combination. picoChip is the industry standard architecture for WiMAX basestations, and is the leading supplier for the new wave of femtocells (3G/4G access points). Uniquely, the company also delivers complete, standards-compliant reference designs for UMTS (HSDPA, upgradeable to HSUPA) and WiMAX/WiBro (both 802.16d and 802.16e, with support for AAS and MIMO). 802.16-based systems using picoChip are available from Airspan, Intel, Ericsson, M/A-Com, Marconi, Nortel and a number of other manufacturers. The company also has strategic relationships with ETRI and Korea Telecom in Korea and both ICT and WSPN-BUPT (Wireless Signal Processing & Network Lab, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications) in China. picoChip technology is also being used to develop other 4G wireless protocols such as UMTS-LTE, 802.20 and TD-SCDMA.

About picoChip
picoChip, located in Bath, England, is dedicated to providing innovative, flexible wireless solutions to help equipment makers minimize time-to-market, costs, and system power consumption.

The heart of the company’s offering is a scaleable, multi-processor baseband IC that combines the computational density of a dedicated ASIC with the programmability of a traditional high end Digital Signal Processor. This radically reduces both development time and materials cost and enables the strategic goal of the “Software Defined Radio”. The company has the most comprehensive reference designs in the industry, with complete, standard-compliant solutions for both UMTS (including HSxPA) and WiMAX (802.16d upgradeable to 802.16e).

http://www.picochip.com

Systems4Silicon
Systems4Silicon provides technology and specialist design services to the wireless communications industry. Focusing on signal processing for the air-interface and wireless physical layer (PHY), the company’s expertise spans system concept evaluation through to partitioning, algorithm design and product development for volume manufacture. Experience, ranging from advanced research and standards setting through to production quality coding for advanced FPGAs and signal processors, provides Systems4Silicon’s customers with intelligent solutions for today’s performance, cost and time-to-market challenges.

http://www.systems4silicon.com