Xilinx and TI Reduce the Number of Small Cell Antennas
Developing a Scalable, Adaptive Digital Frontend
Provides instantaneous bandwidth to support MIMO applications


Unlike macro cells, which support wide-area coverage of several kilometers, small cells are small base stations that support coverage of 10 to several hundred meters. Due to the characteristics of 5G radio waves, which are highly straight and have low diffraction, it is attracting attention as a base station type suitable for implementing 5G services.

5G small cells must support three key 5G scenarios: enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC), and Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC), requiring a scalable and adaptable radio platform.

Xilinx announced on the 25th that it has developed a scalable, adaptive digital front-end (DFE) solution with Texas Instruments (TI) that reduces the number of antennas in small cells and increases energy efficiency.

This adaptive DFE solution, which consists of Xilinx's Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC, adaptive RF IP, and TI's AFE7769 4-channel RF transceiver, can improve the OPEX (operating expenses) and CAPEX (capital expenditures) problems of large-scale telecommunications carriers or private networks.

Xilinx's adaptive RF IP, which includes specialized features such as Crest Factor Reduction (CFR) and Digital Pre-distortion (DPD), supports a wide range of wireless bandwidths and carrier configurations. Additionally, it is tightly integrated with the PHY processing implemented in the Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC device, enabling it to handle increasingly complex multi-RAT and dynamic 5G waveform signals that are difficult to handle with standalone DPD implementations.

This DFE solution, jointly developed by Xilinx and TI, is based on gallium nitride (GaN), a next-generation semiconductor material, to improve the efficiency of power amplifiers (PAs) to address new requirements for wireless communications.

“A successful wireless platform hinges on the efficiency and performance of the RF PA,” said Liam Madden, senior vice president and general manager of the Wired and Wireless Group at Xilinx. “Even for low-power small cell applications, the PA consumes more than 50 percent of the power of a typical next-generation radio, making it critical to optimizing OPEX and CAPEX.”

“Spectral efficiency and linearity of the PA that delivers RF power are critical to achieving the benefits of 5G systems,” said Karthik Vasanth, vice president and general manager of TI’s Data Converters business unit. “Wideband transceivers like the AFE7769 address the nonlinearities of higher-order PAs and deliver power more efficiently.”

“This DFE solution allows designers to accommodate market demands for higher antenna counts and higher instantaneous bandwidth to support MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) applications,” he added, “while also providing scalability to meet system cost targets.”