US : Aricent has introduced its new UMTS baseband and WiMAX base station software solution. The Aricent software is the first C programming language implementation of core baseband modules which, combined with Aricent software services, enables porting onto multiple semiconductor platforms including digital signaling processors (DSP) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGA).

The Aricent UMTS baseband and WiMAX base station solution enables semiconductor manufacturers to rapidly enter the femtocell, picocell and WiMAX base station markets. Aricent software and services will reduce semiconductor companies’ development risk and shorten their time-to-market.

The WiMAX software, when combined with third-party hardware, enables companies to build reference designs or WiMAX base station products. The software is designed for easy porting to different media access control (MAC) platforms, hardware platforms and operating systems, including Linux.

“Aricent’s multi-platform UMTS baseband and WiMAX base station software will slash time-to-market for both semiconductor and hardware companies,” said Ajay Gupta, vice president of the wireless and convergence business unit, Aricent. “The Aricent software is the industry’s first high level programming language implementation for UMTS and WiMAX, and backed by our expert services, can kick-start a wide array of communication products.”

Key elements of the Aricent UMTS baseband and WiMAX base station solution include:

• A software services practice with expertise in UMTS, femtocell, picocell and WiMAX base station implementations;
• A highly modular UMTS baseband engine with easy-to-use APIs, which enable porting onto a range of processors (DSP, FPGA, SoC);
• Multiple physical layer functionality in the UMTS baseband engine which allows core function re-use in uplink and downlink implementations;
• A WiMAX basestation framework that conforms to the 802.16e (2004/2005) specification;
• Complete basestation software above the MAC layer and flexible interfaces to the MAC layer below RF in the WiMAX basestation framework; and
• Built-in debugging, trace and diagnostic features to speed product development.

Aricent will demonstrate the UMTS baseband and WiMAX basestation software in Booth #14 at SAME, 2007, Sophia Antipolis, France, October 3-4, 2007.