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IDT unveils 10G serial buffer for 3G and beyond
November 13, 2006
IDT (Integrated Device Technology) unveiled its 10G serial buffer, the industry's first Serial RapidIO-based memory solution. When coupled with the previously announced IDT pre-processing switch (PPS), this wireless chipset solution offers an optimized interconnection that accelerates DSP performance by up to 20 percent, thus enabling the cost-effective delivery of advanced DSP-intensive wireless services, such as mobile video, to end consumers. The wireless chipset works in conjunction with digital signal processors (DSPs) and chip-rate processors (CRPs) from various vendors, enabling complete solutions for cellular baseband vendors.
Responding to the high-data throughput requirement facing next-generation cellular base station designers, the 10G serial buffer delivers 10-Gbps performance. Offering 18 Mbits of memory, which can be scaled to 90 Mbits for optimum functionality, the 10G serial buffer also eliminates severe memory capacity and performance limitations, enabling the real-time execution of large, consecutive, data-sample comparisons in next-generation base station systems and other DSP-intensive applications. With only 16 I/Os required, versus up to 100 for parallel processing, the IDT 10G serial buffer dramatically reduces the bill of materials as compared to the alternative approaches -- an absolute necessity for the cost-effective delivery of value-added services in 3G and beyond.
"The IDT 10G serial buffer, together with the PPS, provide base station vendors with a complete processing and storage solution to augment the necessary DSP chips," said Will Strauss, Forward Concepts' president and principal analyst, and foremost authority on DSP market trends. "While the 10G serial buffer solves the sample-compare problem, the PPS solves the throughput-intensive data processing and switching problems. And together, this high performance, cost-effective solution set can be used anywhere there is a DSP farm."
The IDT 10G serial buffer provides intelligent monitoring and control circuitry that automatically identifies and compensates for dropped data samples to maintain data synchronicity -- replacing a function that would normally need to be custom developed and external to the memory. This function is vital for the performance and the quality of service essential to the delivery of value-added services that depend upon high-data-rate communications.
"The 10G serial buffer is the cumulative result of our in-depth analysis of the base station performance bottlenecks, RapidIO efforts and invaluable customer feedback," said Michael Olsen, product manager for the IDT Flow-control Management Division. "Per our base station customers, the limited capacity of local memory is a serious bottleneck with few viable solutions available to them. Parallelizing the data is one option, but it is expensive. Moving to FPGA/DSP combinations is yet another option, but really only a costly band-aid. The real solution was obvious -- a large, incredibly fast, shared memory resource -- the 10G serial buffer. And our customers tell us that combined with the PPS, they can save 50 to 75 percent on the bill of materials, as compared to alternative approaches."
Pricing and Availability
The IDT 10G serial buffer is available in a 484-pin BGA package, which is RoHS compliant. The product is currently alpha sampling and is priced at $89 in 10,000 unit quantities.
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