SoCs boost existing microwave backhaul infrastructure

Broadcom's two SoCs are each designed to support the growing surge in data traffic over the wireless network. With more than 6Bn people communicating over cellular networksand the growth of mobile services such as 5G and LTE, optimisation and efficiency in the backhaul is essential and a more efficient technology can deliver greater capacity over the same spectrum.

Broadcom's BCM85650 features integrated cross-Polarisation Interference Cancellation (XPIC) and Line-of-Sight Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (LoS-MIMO) functionalities to boost spectral efficiency. Integrated LoS-MIMO technology significantly eases carrier deployments by supporting flexible antenna placement and reducing external connection and hardware requirements. The BCM85650 includes a dual-core wideband modem and supports advanced channel aggregation functionality for flexible and efficient capacity doubling. It also delivers 4K-QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), the highest modulation currently available.

The Broadcom BCM85820 enables capacity and spectral efficiency gains through integrated support for XPIC, MIMO, 4K-QAM modulation, 112MHz channels and channel aggregation functionality. The BCM85820 employs advanced digital RF correction mechanisms, such as Adaptive Digital-Pre-Distortion (ADPD) functionary to achieve high system gain. The highly-integrated BCM85820 includes full transceiver as well as synthesiser components.

“Broadcom continues to advance its merchant silicon solutions for the microwave backhaul infrastructure market to meet the growing data demands of mobile consumers,” said Ran Soffer, General Manager, Microwave, Broadcom. “Our newest offerings provide mobile access carriers an increase in capacity over the same spectrum band in a modular and flexible way.”

“Mobile operators must deliver an outstanding customer experience at the right price, in order to retain customers in a highly competitive market,” said Michael Howard, Principal Analyst, Infonetics/IHS. “Improving customer experience is dependent on satisfying growing mobile backhaul demands, and this requires new technology, such as higher spectral efficiency and flexible frequency bands - which achieve lower cost per bit when supporting more users at higher speeds. We expect that equipment manufacturers and mobile operators will appreciate Broadcom's latest SoCs deliver more capacity and coverage into the mobile network.”

Broadcom’s offerings enable carriers and telecom equipment manufacturers to enjoy a modular and flexible system design with a ‘pay-as-grow’ architecture, supporting capacity doubling with XPIC or carrier aggregation and capacity quadrupling with XPIC + carrier aggregation or XPIC + MIMO.

Broadcom's BCM85650 and BCM85820 are currently sampling.