CEVA and mimoOn provide a complete LTE PHY reference architecture for UE and eNodeB applications

Providing an LTE reference architecture that lowers overall costs and accelerates time-to-market for semiconductor manufacturers and OEMs.

April 12, 2011 – CEVA (NASDAQ: CEVA, NYSE: CVA), a licensee of Silicon Intellectual Property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores, and mimoOn, a leading licensee of LTE software for programmable radio platforms, announced today the latest LTE reference architecture. Based on the widely adopted CEVA-XC communications processor, the announced LTE reference architecture was developed to provide a cost-effective and low-power solution for the proliferation of 4G terminals and infrastructure devices. The software of this reference architecture can be upgraded to support additional wireless communication standards such as WCDMA, HSPA+, and WiMAX.

The UE (User Equipment) reference architecture is a technology targeting both LTE FDD and LTE TDD up to Category-4, significantly reducing power consumption and silicon costs to meet the stringent requirements of mobile devices. Furthermore, this solution can be easily adapted to TDD mode only or lower LTE categories to further reduce costs and power. Using a 40nm LP process, the CEVA-XC-based LTE UE silicon size is reduced to 4mm², achieving low power consumption of 200mW in a Category-4 PHY system (20 MHz bandwidth, MIMO 2x2, 150 Mbit/sec). CEVA and mimoOn's UE solution is currently being developed with one of the leading companies in the global wireless market, and was showcased at CEVA's booth at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) held from February 14 to 17.

The scalable eNodeB reference architecture is a solution developed for LTE FDD and LTE TDD, supporting a wide range of products from home and enterprise femtocells to high-density picocells. Built with homogeneous CEVA-XC processors requiring minimal hardwired logic, this reference architecture offers easy processor load balancing and the flexibility to support multiple wireless communication standards, while enabling C-based software development. Additionally, this architecture allows for simple software migration from existing wireless base station DSP chips.

Brian Robertson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at mimoOn, stated, “Our collaboration with CEVA to develop an LTE reference architecture for UE and eNodeB applications is the result of two years of close cooperation and meets the industry’s demand for licenseable LTE solutions by providing benefits that dramatically reduce costs and time-to-market. The flexibility of this architecture is highly attractive to LTE device manufacturers targeting high volume sales, as it enables the reuse of the architecture for various purposes through software.”

Eran Briman, Vice President of Marketing at CEVA, said, “Through our partnership with mimoOn, CEVA is able to provide customers with a complete and optimized LTE PHY reference architecture for various mass-market 4G products, including mobile phones, data modems, femtocells, and picocells.”