Article Tools

• 

Cambridge Consultants will demonstrate its Centaur GSM physical-layer (PHY) reference design at this week’s CTIA Wireless 2009 show in Las Vegas. Centaur enables the development of advanced cellular basestations and femtocells that incorporate 2G and 2.75G capability, the company says, addressing the ultra-low-cost, mass-market, and integration requirements of the developing world.

According to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association, much of the recent growth in GSM subscriptions is in the developing world. By the end of 2009, there were 365 million GSM subscriptions in Africa, 100 million of which joined that year. In 2008, India saw 47.5% growth in GSM subscriptions, rising by an average of 6.83 million subscriptions each month from 170 million to more than 250 million.

Many of today’s new basestations focus on broadband-capable cellular technologies like 3G and WiMAX and lack 2G capabilities. With Centaur, Cambridge says, developers can add 2G capability to their existing designs and gain access to both the mass market for 2G and the niche market for advanced standards in one product. The reference design includes a complete framework model and code implemented on the unique architecture of the picoArray baseband platform for femtocells and software-defined basestations from picoChip.