ODU SoC Cuts Size, Power, Production Cost

According to semiconductor maker Broadcom Corporation, its BCM85810 product, which it claims is the world’s first microwave outdoor unit (ODU) on a chip, combines the functionality of as many as 10 off-the-shelf chips, thus reducing the size, complexity, production cost and power consumption of microwave radio frequency units (RFUs).

Designed to address the need for higher bandwidth and faster time-to-market in microwave split-mount and full/all outdoor units (FODU/AODU), Broadcom says the BCM85810 RF system-on-a-chip (SoC) is based on a flexible architecture, enabling various types of system architectures such as split-mount (IDU-ODU) and all-outdoor (All-ODU) on a common hardware platform. With only two variants to cover all standard point-to-point microwave frequency bands and all channel bandwidths, the BCM85810 single chip solution simplifies system manufacturing, deployment and inventory management. ? ?

With predictions of mobile-data traffic quadrupling by 2015 as the number of mobile users and use of multimedia services continues to rise, Dan Charash, senior director & general manager, Microwave at Broadcom, notes, “The introduction of our BCM85810 single chip solution marks the expansion of Broadcom’s microwave backhaul portfolio into the RF domain, as we have successfully done in multiple solutions including Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth and cable modems.”

Broadcom says the new chip:?

>> Combines functionality of as many as 10 off-the-shelf ASSPs, including synthesizers (IF and RF), LNA, AGCs, BPF Bank, LPF Bank, IR Mixers, VGA and VVA with wide dynamic range, PA driver and power detectors;
>> Is ETSI- and FCC-compliant; and
>> Features wide AGC dynamic range (>70 dB), internal power controls, Rx output power over full-input power range and on-chip selectable baseband filters.

In separate but related Broadcom news, the company is offering samples of what it says is the industry’s first 10 GbE eight-channel, front panel Ethernet physical layer transceiver (PHY). The new BCM84780 Octal SFI-XFI PHY “establishes a new standard for higher bandwidth data center and enterprise network performance and server virtualization while reducing chip size and power by approximately 25 percent,” Broadcom adds.

Targeting data centers and enterprise networks that are transitioning to 10 GbE and server virtualization, the BCM84780 octal PHY is approximately 25 percent smaller with lower power per port compared to other currently available solutions. The PHY features eight fully independent channels with IEEE 1588 timestamping. It also incorporates EDC that enables data to be transmitted on a 10 GbE serial interface for applications requiring transmission over multimode fiber at distances as far as 300 meters (LRM) using OM3 fiber and SFP+ copper twin-axial cable.

The PHY’s multi-rate capabilities enable the user to work with either 10 GbE or 1 GbE systems. Integrated IEEE 1588 time synchronization operates on a per-channel basis that allows an in-band scheme of precisely timed packets to traverse across multiple systems for voice, video and wireless base stations applications. The user also can bypass or disable the 1588 functionality for each channel independently.