Key Technologies for Future Wireless Systems

Software-Defined Radio in Commercial Radio Systems

Dr. Tim Lunn (PA Consulting Group)

Martin Streckfuss (Analog Devices)

28 March 2006
Outline

Software-Defined Radio (SDR) has been discussed for many years and
means different things to different people. Has its time come?
 This paper will examine how SDR is already use in commercial
mobile systems.

We will look at:

 The range of definitions for SDR
 Technologies currently in use to implement SDR systems
 Case study: the implementation of five 3G standards on a single
hardware platform
 The commercial drivers for pragmatic SDR systems
 The future opportunities for SDR
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 2
 SDR is …

“SDR” means different things to different people

 SDR Forum – SCA/JTRS
– A collection of hardware and software technologies that enable reconfigurable system
architectures for wireless networks and user terminals
 European Commission R&TTE Directive TCAM group on SDR
– A radio where essential radio parameters – normally subject to regulation – like frequency
range, modulation type, maximum output power etc. can be altered by changing software
 Joe Mitola, Mitre Corp.
– A radio whose channel modulation waveforms are defined in software
• wideband DAC and ADC, as close to the antenna as possible
• grind samples in software on a general purpose processor
 Vanu Inc.
– Allows a single wireless device to support a wide range of capabilities previously available only
through multiple products via software download
 Wikipedia
– A radio communication system which uses software for the modulation and demodulation of
radio signals
• general purpose computer
• reconfigurable piece of digital electronics

© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 3

 SDR is …

There are common threads to the SDR definitions

 Digital signal processing

RF

 Hardware is general purpose A/D D/A

– Configurable hardware
Highly
– FPGA Configurable
Hardware
– DSP

– Signal
Microprocessor
Processing
Software

 Reconfigurable
– implementation of different functionality by firmware download

© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 4

 SDR is …

Software-defined radio is here, and is here to stay

 Many mobile radio basestations are Base Station Cost Distribution

essentially software-defined Mechanics
15%
– A lot of processing performed in DSP software Network
Antenna
10%
Backhaul
– Hardware processing is highly configurable 10%

Digital Base
– Gradual move to multi-carrier radio Band
Radio TRX
& PA
15%
50%

 Main driver is $$$

– Flexibility reduces cost of redesign Cell Site Cost Distribution
Antenna
• Evolving standards, bug fixes, Equipment Coaxial
performance enhancement 9% Cable
Power
8%
Civil Works Supply
– Hybrid hardware and software is most cost- 43% 6%
effective
Base
• Flexibility still maintained Station
Cabinet
– Radio is most expensive component of a 34%

system
• Radio BoM around 30–50% of BTS
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 5
 SDR technologies …

A number of technologies are being used to implement SDR

 Microprocessor e.g. ARM9, PowerPC, Pentium

– control and basic signal processing
 DSP e.g. ADI TigerSHARC, TI Himalaya, StarCore
– efficient signal processing
– hardware acceleration of MIPS-intensive operations
 Array processors e.g. picoChip picoArray, Aspex Linedancer
– many small processors running in parallel
– configurable interconnect
 FPGA e.g. Xilinx, Altera, Lattice
– flexible and massively parallel processing
– integration of specific signal processing operations
 Configurable hardware e.g. ADI 6633, Intersil 5416
– programmable up/down conversion, filtering, etc.
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 6
 SDR technologies …
Many DSPs now include hardware for acceleration of key
signal processing operations

DESPREAD:
Received
Received complex
complex samples
samples rr77 rr66 rr55 rr44 rr33 rr22 rr11 rr00
xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

Scrambling/
Scrambling/ c128
c c24
c c16
c cc88 cc77 cc66 cc55 cc44 cc33 cc22 cc11 cc00 yy00
spreading code
spreading code 128 24 16
c8 c1 y1
c9 7 c2 y2

TURBO: c11
c10 y0  y0 
c4
r cc3

i 0
i i
y3
y4
c12 c5 y5
c13 c6 y6
c14 c7 y7
c15 c8 y8
c16 c9 y9
c17 c10 y10
c18 c11 y11
c19 c12 7 y12

c21
c20
c14
c13 y  y  r c
i 0
i i 
y13
y14
c22 c15 y15


log e x  e y  Coprocessors
 


max x, y   log 1  e
 x y
– trades flexibility

Lookup table © PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 7

 SDR technologies …

Handset SDR architectures

 SDR terminal solutions appearing — Icera have HSDPA
 Typical System-on-Chip architecture
SoC
Adaptive equalizer

Rake fingers
BlackFIN
Path searcher

Turbo decoder
BlackFIN
Interleaver

Filtering

 Challenge is high volumes, low cost

 Need benefit of flexibility and multi-mode to outweigh extra cost
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 8
 Case study …
Case study: the implementation of five 3G standards on a
single hardware platform
 WCDMA with HSDPA
 cdma2000 1xRTT and EV-DO
 TD-CDMA and TD-SCDMA
 700MHz to 2.7GHz –
standards compliant tuneable
radio
 Over-the-air operation
 All-software baseband
 Each unit configurable as BTS
or MS
 Supports end-to-end data
transfers, web browsing, video
streaming, etc.

© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 9

 A combination of DSP, FPGA and configurable hardware
is used

TigerSHARC array Programmable hardware Tuneable analog hardware

RF
DSP DSP TSP DAC IF
RF

FPGA
Host PC
DSP DSP RF
RSP ADC IF
RF

 Mode
control  Buffering
 1st & 2nd IFs
 GUI  Format
conversion  Switched SAWs
 Chip-rate processing  Split bands
 Symbol-rate processing  Filtering
– 700–960 MHz
 MAC  Gain control – 1400–2690 MHz
 L3 call control  Interpolation  Multiple tuneable
/decimation YIG filters
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 10
 Case study …

The system has been used in laboratory and drive tests

100
90
80
70

Probability (%)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Guard Band (MHz)

© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 11

 Commercial drivers …

The commercial drivers encourage pragmatic SDR systems

Pico, micro, macro

Cost
BTS portfolio
New Technology
More frequency More air interface
bands standards Custom Hardware

FPGA
REDUCE COST
• Common platform approach Commodity Hardware

• Reduced development effort High-End Software

SDR
Commodity Software
REDUCE RISK
• Multi-standard capability Time
• SW upgrades for new features

Value Creation in SW improves Profitability

IMPROVE TIME-TO-MARKET
REDUCE TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 12
 Commercial drivers …

However, SDR comes at a cost

 Increased silicon cost

– more gates required to flexibly implement given functionality
 Increased power consumption
– more gates being clocked
 Increased size
– more silicon dissipating more power

 Trade-off between NRE and Unit Cost

– savings in NRE are significant in low volume
• basestations
– high volumes addressed better by higher NRE and lower Unit Cost
• terminals, consumer products

© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 13

 Looking ahead …

SDR will be used for future wireless systems

 FPGAs
– massively parallel processing
– sample-rate processing, chip-rate processing, FFTs, turbo decoders, correlators, etc.
 DSPs
– more complex algorithms
– chip-rate processing, symbol-rate processing, user processing, synchronization,
adaptive antenna array processing, etc.
 Configurable hardware
– commoditised functions
– DDS, DUC, DDC, FIR, AGC, etc.
 Array processors
– all of the above

These will be used in:

 Prototypes, while standards evolve
 Product, for reduced NRE and time-to-market
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 14
 Looking ahead …

Evolution of ADI TigerSHARC DSP for SDR Base Stations

Instruction Set Architecture FPGA Base Band

Comms SW Instructions Co-Processing

Flexible SDR Base Band Processing Platform

ADSP-TS-101
ADSP-TS-201
3G Chip Rate Next Gen
Processing TigerSHARC

FEC > 10 Mbps

DSP Evolution: Higher Integration & Higher Throughput

Changing Task Partitioning between DSP & FPGA
© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 15
Conclusions

 SDR is already in widespread use in current wireless systems

 Many different technologies are used to implement SDR systems

 There is an economic trade-off with the use of SDR

– Good for high flexibility and lower volumes
– Poor for very high volumes with no requirement for flexibility

 SDR is already playing an important role in development of future

wireless systems

© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 16

 Tim Lunn Martin Streckfuss
tim.lunn@paconsulting.com martin.streckfuss@analog.com
+44 1763 267 323 +49 221 689 2948

© PA Knowledge Limited 2002. All rights reserved.-xxx- 25/03/2002- 17