Pico Cell Package Does It All

Heralded as the industry’s most comprehensive solution for pico-cell basestation modems, the company's hardware and software package bundles the STW51000, a.k.a the first baseband modem SoC, with multi-standard software libraries optimized for GSM, EDGE, W-CDMA, and WiMAX networks. Driving up base-station channel density, the SoC can be used with 20 concurrent voice users in a Release 4 WCDMA network. It integrates DSP and ARM cores, memory, and dedicated co-processors in a single chip delivering up to 1.2 GHz of quad-MAC DSP core performance and 300 MHz of ARM926 processing power. Both DSPs run signal-processing tasks exclusively, wasting no DSP cycles on control tasks. The ARM926 core acts as the SoC controller, handling all control tasks. Available in a PBGA 569 package, the device costs $50 each in volume. STMICROELECTRONICS, Lexington, MA. (888) 787-3550.