PicoChip and Wavesat say they have successfully completed interoperability testing (IOT) between Picochip’s PC960x LTE small cell base-station solution and Wavesat’s Odyssey 9000 family of UE (user equipment) chipsets.
Wavesat’s Odyssey 9000 chipsets – featuring CAT-3 performance (100-Mbps downlink, 50-Mbps uplink) for user equipment such as USB dongles, data cards, mobile handsets and tablets/MIDs – were tested with Picochip’s PC9608/9 ‘small cell’ base-station development platform developed jointly with Continuous Computing (CCPU), connecting to both network test and commercial EPC gateway products.
The two companies announced in a memorandum of understanding March 2010 concerning end-to-end LTE interoperability testing for their products, which they say will help LTE network operators, systems integrators and OEM/ODM system manufacturers benefit from the availability of combined, tested technologies such as fully conformant / ready-to-ship eNode B reference designs.
“The fact that semiconductor reference designs are of a maturity and quality to support end-to-end system test, verification and IOT is an encouraging sign for the pace of LTE development and likely to accelerate the maturation of the market, said Peter Jarich, Service Director with Current Analysis, in a statement.
Jarich said a November 2010 straw poll on femtocells by Current Analysis found that 94% of respondents from the femtocell ecosystem felt that small cells were critical to LTE deployment.
“Obviously, the availability of interoperable network and UE products is an essential part of that,” he said.