picoChip delivers first ‘greater femtocell’ solution for enterprise, metro and rural applications

The PC8219E’s eight user capacity, 2km range and support for vehicular mobility make it well-suited for low-cost, wide-area open access femtocell deployments in areas where carriers need to cost-effectively enhance coverage and capacity. Although femtocells are often thought of for residential applications, there is a growing recognition that the advantages they deliver, in terms of capital and operating expenditure, can be more broadly applicable.

Running on picoChip’s current production silicon, already deployed in volume by OEM customers with mobile carriers, the PC8219E provides a seamless migration path to picoChip's PC3xx picoXcell(TM) SoCs. As such, it offers manufacturers an easy way to address this emerging market segment.

Simon Saunders, Chair of the Femto Forum commented, “The first femtocell deployments have been focused on the residential market but we are now seeing overwhelming interest in moving beyond the home. Numerous operators have called for outdoor femtocells which will extend coverage and provide additional mobile broadband capacity to rural and metropolitan areas as well as enterprise campuses. Leveraging the architecture and economies of scale of mass-market femtocells means that operators can deliver major improvements to their outdoor network in a cost-effective and precisely targeted fashion. This also brings the benefits of mobile broadband to a wider audience than would otherwise be possible, helping to address the 'digital divide'.

Nigel Toon, President and CEO of picoChip, added: “We are already shipping in volume for residential applications, but this announcement demonstrates how femtocell technology is more broadly applicable. Given the prevalence of mobile devices there is huge potential to address the widespread problems of in-building coverage, to fix coverage blackspots or add capacity where it is needed. The PC8219E extends picoChip’s successful product portfolio to deliver the benefits of femtocells to wider-area applications. This is important for HSPA but becomes essential for LTE.”

The PC8219E is a programmable, flexible, easily integrated product that builds on picoChip’s experience with field-proven, robust and fully compliance-tested PHY. It caters for multiple users, has self configuration features and backhauls via the internet. Featuring industry-standard FAPI and FRMI interfaces, as defined by the Femto Forum, the PC8219E also has fully-compliant security functions. The new design includes a network monitoring function that allows the femtocell to reconfigure itself to behave like a handset receive chain, synchronizing with a macro-base station nearby, improving network planning and providing the basis for Self Organizing Network (SON) functions.

This new variety of mobile cells has been termed ‘greater femtocells’ or ‘superfemtos’. Such products are similar to the 3GPP ‘Local Area Basestation’ or traditional picocells, but add the femtocell’s capabilities to use standard backhaul and to self-configure for interference management. The Femto Forum has recently standardized femtocells into Class 1 (typically residential), Class 2 (primarily indoor for enterprise) and Class 3 (for rural, metro and wider area deployment). The picoChip PC8219E product is the world’s first solution for Class 3 femtocells.