Our EVP breakthrough promises to transform wireless
Notice:
These products are now part of ST-NXP Wireless, the joint venture formed by STMicroelectronics and NXP. New products from ST-NXP Wireless can be found at www.stnwireless.com.
Building on the concept of a software-defined radio (SDR), we've developed a new way to address the issues of integration, flexibility, and standards in mobile communications.
Our Embedded Vector Processor (EVP) is a powerful, fully programmable vector processor that enables mobile devices to support multi-mode and multi-standard platforms, and cope with emerging telecom standards. This is particularly critical for handset manufacturers looking to move from 3G to 4G.
As end users demand to be continuously connected in the best possible way, the issue of supporting multiple standards becomes more pressing. A single mobile phone has to handle a broad assortment of standards, including GSM, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, Bluetooth, WiMAX, UWB, FM, Wi-Fi, NFC, and more. The result is a system that has to accommodate extra frequencies and standards, but also a range of MIMO antenna for broadband applications.
This convergence means that each handset includes an increasing number of radio components and antennas, which in turn creates serious issues in size, coexistence, and power consumption. This is what NXP terms the "Porcupine Problem", in reference to the spiky composition of all the various antennas added to the system design.
In response to the Porcupine Problem, NXP has devised a new approach that divides the RF portion of the design into three classes based on data rates. For example, the low end would include a combination RF chip dealing with Near Field Communication, Bluetooth, ZigBee, WiBree, and UWB. In the middle layer there would be a reconfigurable RF channel for cellular communications, and for high data rates, a reconfigurable RF channel for high-bandwidth applications such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and LTE.
Critical to the approach is the implementation of a highly parallel Embedded Vector Processor to provide the computational resources for programmable modem functionality. This programmable vector processor complements classical DAP and ARM cores.
EVP will be available this year for embedding into ICs and will be included in several NXP products to be released in the 2008/2009 timeframe.
Related links
- NXP Innovation Brings SDR Technology to Address Mobile Communication Standards
- NXP portfolio for cellular handsets
- NXP Nexperia cellular system solutions
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