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picoChip has announced the PC6532 Wave 2 femtocell, the next version of its industry-standard WiMAX base station reference design. Femtocell access points are optimized for deployment inside buildings to improve coverage and data rates. The company states that the new PC6532 WiMAX femtocell is the industry’s only single-chip (PHY + MAC) reference design to support WiMAX Wave 2 and full IO-MIMO in both downlink and uplink.

Like its predecessor, the Wave 1 PC6530, the new reference design integrates full PHY and MAC into a single picoArray-based PC205 processor. The PC6532 offers the lowest-cost solution for a complete WiMAX Wave 2 femtocell, with seamless software upgrade for existing picoChip PC6530 Wave 1 designs.

The PC6532 supports Wave 2 and full IO-MIMO, with Matrix A and Matrix B downlink, and both MRC and UL-CSM uplink. Wave 2 is the latest version of the WiMAX standard, adding increased support for mobility, while MIMO (multi-input multi-output) increases data rate and reliability by simultaneously sending and receiving data via multiple antennas.

The picoChip WiMAX architecture is scalable from femtocell access points to sophisticated multisector carrier macrocells with full support for IO-MIMO and beamforming. Both reference designs run on a single processor: the PC205 integrates an ARM processor for MAC functionality, and picoArray multicore DSP for software-defined PHY.

The PC6532 is based on picoChip’s industry-standard WiMAX platform that has demonstrated the widest range of interoperability with third-party terminals through active participation at the WiMAX Forum Public Mobile WiMAX Plugfest for Interoperability events. AT4 Wireless (formerly known as CETECOM) is the WiMAX Forum’s approved testing authority for the certification of WiMAX products and uses the picoChip WiMAX reference design as the core in its protocol conformance tester.

The PC6530 Wave 1 WiMAX reference design is available now and has already passed IOT testing. The seamless software upgrade to the PC6532 Wave 2 WiMAX femtocell reference design will be available in Q2 2008.