Lattice Semiconductor announced today the launch of a new baseband processor. The SB6541 is designed to be used in fixed wireless access and wireless backhaul for urban broadband infrastructure such as LTE small cells and metro Wi-Fi access points, in combination with Lattice's Sil6340 and Sil6342 RF transceivers.

As demand for gigabit IP (Internet Protocol) data increases in homes, demand for fixed wireless broadband access is growing. At the same time, in data-dense areas, gigabit IP data connectivity is required for the construction of metro Wi-Fi and LTE networks.

The 60GHz band has unique propagation characteristics of the band itself, not only offering wide available bandwidth but also excellent frequency band reusability, and both of these characteristics are essential for next-generation wireless network architectures, making them ideal for these applications. These chipsets provide the industry's first complete solution for the 60GHz frequency band and employ SiBEAM™ technology for enhanced data throughput and network reliability.

Additionally, Lattice's chipsets support beam-steering technology on phased-array antennas. Devices implementing beam-steering technology are not difficult to deploy and can be installed quickly even by non-experts. In this case, links can be established between the relevant node and other nodes in the network without additional manual work, and links can be maintained even when environmental conditions change or the network is reconfigured. This significantly reduces installation and maintenance costs.

New SB6541 Combined with SiBeam's RF Transceiver to
Deliver Multi-Gigabit Speeds in the 60GHz Frequency Band

Khurram Sheikh, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Lattice Semiconductor, stated, "Our connected world is currently 'wireless first,'" and added, "Recent data demand in wireless networks is exceeding the level of utilization of existing infrastructure that meets user requirements. By using the new SB6541 baseband processor together with Lattice's RF transceivers, OEMs and service providers can now take advantage of the 60GHz frequency band to build infrastructure hardware that delivers network data processing performance of up to 2Gbps."

When used with Lattice's Sil6342 RF transceiver, the SB6541 supports maximum IP data transmission rates of up to 2Gbps, and typically supports data processing speeds of 1Gbps at ranges up to 300 meters. This device integrates the RF transceiver through high-speed analog I/O and digital control interfaces. The SB6541 processor can be easily integrated into any system design through a PCIe interface.