Design kit simplifies multicarrier 3G basestations

New from PMC-Sierra, the PM2360-KIT Gandalf reference design kit is a full reference platform for advanced 3G wireless basestation designs based on PMC-Sierra's PM7815 Paladin-15 product.

New from PMC-Sierra, the PM2360-KIT Gandalf reference design kit is a full reference platform for advanced 3G wireless basestation designs based on PMC-Sierra's PM7815 Paladin-15 product.

The Gandalf reference design kit enables system developers to design highly efficient and low-cost digital multicarrier basestation designs.

This turnkey kit provides the essential components for the basestation designer to prototype an advanced linearised multicarrier transmitter subsystem for W-CDMA and cdma2000 applications.

The designer only needs to add a signal source and a simple, low-cost, Class-AB high-power amplifier (HPA) module.

The Gandalf development evaluation board integrates PMC-Sierra's Paladin-15 chip, which eliminates transmitter distortions and improves spectral efficiency in wireless base transceiver stations (BTS) at dramatically lower power and cost with higher efficiency than existing implementations.

The Paladin-15 chip design enables 15MHz multicarrier W-CDMA and cdma2000 applications without using costly, power-hungry, feed-forward RF amplifiers.

The Paladin-15 chip provides all the core digital adaptive predistortion and analogue quadrature modulator (AQM) compensation functions required for linearised multicarrier transmitter architectures.

The reference kit also includes a complete wideband radio reference board that is performance matched to the Paladin-15 chip and connects directly to the Gandalf development evaluation board.

The Gandalf development evaluation board system enables BTS control processor software developers to integrate and test the Paladin control software in a RF system before the digital hardware is ready.

This initial software development environment can be either on a PC or another processor.

In a PC environment all the necessary software drivers are provided to communicate with the Gandalf board by a standard data interface.

"The Gandalf reference design kit, which is currently in design with several of the large basestation manufacturers worldwide, offers a complete end-to-end 3G system design solution", said Laurie Wallace, director of marketing of PMC-Sierra's Access Products Division.

"PMC-Sierra's innovative designs, like our Paladin chips, offer breakthrough digital predistortion power amplifier technology that is low-cost, highly-efficient and meet the time-to-market challenges critical for success".

PMC-Sierra's wireless basestation devices include the PM7800 Paladin-10 and PM7815 Paladin-15 chip solutions.

The Paladin-10 is suitable for up to two-carrier W-CDMA and up to six-carrier IS-95/cdma2000 multicarrier systems.

The Paladin-15 is suitable for up to three-carrier W-CDMA/UMTS and up to nine-carrier IS-95/cdma2000 systems.

A comprehensive support package including reference design documents, application notes and user manuals is available on PMC-Sierra's website.

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