Chipset simplifies fixed broadband radio systems

Intersil reckons its CommLink OC-3 digital radio modem chipset will speed up the design of fixed broadband radio systems for wireless Internet and cellular basestation communications equipment.

Intersil reckons its CommLink OC-3 digital radio modem chipset will speed up the design of fixed broadband radio systems for wireless Internet and cellular basestation communications equipment.

The ISL87060 chipset and reference design is the first product resulting from Intersil's strategic acquisition of SiCOM of Scottsdale, USA.

It enables low-cost, rapid deployment of point-to-point digital radio systems for high speed wireless transmission of voice, data and video at speeds from 4x T1/E1 to full OC-3/STM-1 datarates of 155Mbit/s to meet the wide range of frequency plans and capacities in use around the world.

Volume production shipments are already underway.

The modem chipset solution is designed from the ground up to optimise wireless link capacity, and reduce the need for expensive power amplifiers and tuners that often dominate the cost of broadband fixed wireless networks.

As a result, this design approach reduces the overall bill of material cost for the digital radio.

A rich feature set means customers do not need to develop custom ASICs in-house and allows faster prototype design and development.

The new digital modem solution includes the ISL87060 modulator/demodulator chipset, the ISL837030 reference design and the ISL83700 modem evaluation kit.

This complete system allows equipment manufacturers to build and test cost-effective point-to-point digital radios to increase the data capacity of fixed broadband wireless networking equipment.

The ISL87060 chipset consists of two ICs: the ISL87060MIK modulator chip and the ISL87060DIK demodulator chip.

The modulator chip accepts input databytes, performs encoding, constructs the waveform, applies pulse shaping and generates digital baseband data outputs.

The demodulator chip receives digital baseband data inputs, performs signal conditioning, symbol timing, carrier tracking, adaptive equalisation and decoding to produce databyte and clock outputs.

Applications for the ISL87060 chipset include digital microwave radios for interconnection of cellular basestations, high-capacity Internet infrastructure, point-to-consecutive-point wireless ring networks and connection of cellular infrastructures to the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

The reference design supports a wide range of standard datarates, from 4x T1/E1 through OC-3/STM-1 (155Mbit/s).

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