Mobile WiMAX Chips

NextWave Announces Mobile WiMAX Chips

Posted by samc on August 17th, 2007

San Diego-based NextWave Broadband said Thursday morning that it has begun shipping samples of a new WiMax chipset, which it is targeting at consumer electronics and mobile device manufacturers. The firm’s new chipset includes a baseband Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC), along with an RFIC and systems software. The platform is designed to provide the ability to manufacturers to create WiMax terminals. NextWave is a developer of wireless broadband semiconductors.

Key features of the NW1000 Series chipset platform include:

• IEEE 802.16e standard-based;
  Supports PCI and SPI host interfaces;
• Optimized RF-baseband interface for reduced BOM cost, ease of design, and optimized performance;
• Highly-integrated direct conversion RFIC architecture;
• Supports highly scalable channel bandwidths from 1.75 MHz to 20 MHz;
• Supports major worldwide WiMAX spectrum allocations of 2.3 GHz (including the WCS band in the U.S.), 2.5 GHz (including the EBS/BRS band in the U.S.), and 3.4 – 3.8 GHz;
• Integrated MIMO support and optimized for mobile broadband

NextWave sells WiMAX chipsets through its NextWave Broadband subsidiary. NextWave should not be confused with NextNet, which was Clearwire’s contractor of pre-WiMAX gear, now owned by Motorola.

NextWave recently acquired IPWireless, a privately-held company headquartered in San Bruno, California, and the leading supplier of TD-CDMA based mobile broadband network equipment and subscriber terminals. Unlike the 802.16e (Mobile WiMAX) standard which uses OFDMA, IPWireless uses the CDMA standard (see DailyWireless: Nextwave Buys IP-Wireless).

New York City recently chose IPWireless technology for their city-wide safety network. Each cell site provides in-building coverage up to 3 to 5 miles from the cell site in an urban setting. It operates in a single channel of 5 or 10MHz of spectrum and supports voice over IP with full QOS based on SIP.

Flush with cash from their court victory with the FCC over their PCS cellular bid years ago, the company has also gotten into the deployment of Wi-Fi networks through the $13.3 million acquisition of Go Networks and is involved in the delivery of mobile video to cellphones through the acquisition of PacketVideo. NextWave has also acquired nationwide AWS licenses in the U.S. and abroad.

Nextwave won $115 million of spectrum in the FCC’s AWS auction last year. They now own spectrum covering 247 million Americans in most of the country’s major markets, along with the 2.3 GHz WCS band and 2.5 GHz BRS/EBS spectrum. The AWS licenses (in the 1.7/2.1 GHz bands), cover 63 million people.

New York City’s Huge Safety Net utilizes IP-Wireless with Northrup Grumman the main contractor.

The feds make a big deal about interoperability — but they don’t walk the talk. Washingon DC’s incompatible 700 Mhz safety nets include one using EVDO (Lucent’s safety network) and one using incompatible Flarion technology (WARN) using ten, 700 MHz towers for citywide coverage..

New York City has their $500M, city-wide network (at 2.5 GHz using IP Wireless), while New York State has a $2B public safety network using 700 Mhz, Project 25 radios.

None of these networks are interoperable.

source : dailywireless.org