SYSTEMS

Mercury Computer Systems and Texas Instruments today announced their collaboration on the development of the Mercury MTI-203 AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) for WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) wireless infrastructure digital base band applications. WiMAX is an evolving standard for point-to-multipoint wireless networking that provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances for a number of applications including high-speed enterprise connectivity for businesses. The highly integrated module is designed to support TI's newly announced WiMAX/802.16e infrastructure solution for wireless applications, which includes software, analog, and RF products from TI. The multi-standard support for the TMS320TCI6482 digital signal processor (DSP) is expected to provide a fertile development ground for OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), a technique for transmitting large amounts of digital data over a radio wave, and other emerging air interfaces in general. The Mercury MTI-203 will be anchored with three TCI6482 DSPs and a supporting compute node to create a WiMAX infrastructure base band solution. The module will enable all physical layer (PHY) base band processing required for a 20 MHz, TDD, multi-antenna solution with Smart Antenna MIMO (multiple input/multiple output) enabled. As a base band development platform, the MTI- 203 is designed to support advanced features such as Smart Antenna and MIMO transmission across a breadth of air interfaces. "Combining TI DSPs and an FPGA on the same AMC module provides the best of both worlds -- customers can benefit from partitioning their application to the most appropriate processing technology on the same AMC," said Mark Skalabrin, Vice President and General Manager of the Advanced Solutions business at Mercury. "TI and Mercury worked closely together to specify a turnkey base band solution on an AMC that will focus on solving customers' problems using the best technology available." The MTI-203 DSP/FPGA AMC expands the capabilities of the Mercury Ensemble2 family of blades and AMC modules to support highly integrated DSP/FPGA applications. The Ensemble2 AdvancedTCA platform is specifically designed around the performance, scalability, and reliability of the serial RapidIO embedded system interconnect for data plane applications. Leveraging Mercury's renowned expertise in architecting and building efficient, scalable platforms for highly demanding applications in embedded computing, Ensemble2 is expected to deliver unprecedented levels of integration and scalability across a broad class of heterogeneous processing architectures that includes digital signal processors, communications processors, FPGAs, and network processors. Ensemble2 is ideally suited to support WiMAX development activities: * Multiple heterogeneous AMCs to customize application -- option to plug in host processor, radio cards, Network Interface Card (NIC) AMC * Scalability through a combination of AMCs and Carrier Cards -- the use of RapidIO for chip-to-chip and across-the-chassis connectivity allows seamless scaling from a single sector system to multi-sector, multi antenna, multi-carrier WiMAX base station implementation * Flexibility to easily expand specific processing nodes to address application performance bottlenecks; additional FPGA or DSP modules over RapidIO support specific application requirements * Homogeneous interconnect between processing nodes to enable ease of programming over RapidIO between DSPs, communication processors, and FPGAs The Mercury MTI-203 utilizes TI's 1 GHz DSP and optimized WiMAX software library to speed development and time to market for equipment manufacturers developing WiMAX solutions. The TMS320TCI6482 DSP improves cost and power per channel by accelerating PHY processing, and can also be easily upgraded to support future infrastructure needs while protecting manufacturers' and service providers' initial technology investment. The WiMAX-optimized software from TI minimizes product development time, while enabling the manufacturer to add their own customized software. This approach enables reduced implementation risk and quicker time to market, and provides room for competitive differentiation on the end product. "When combined with TI's highly optimized and robust WiMAX software library, the MTI-203 and the Ensemble2 system provide exceptional flexibility and value for WiMAX base station developers," said Jerold Givens, manager, DSP communications infrastructure group at TI. "We are pleased to work with Mercury to deliver high-performance, flexible solutions that speed development of WiMAX products." Availability Early customer access of the Mercury MTI-203 module is planned for September 2006. For more information on the MTI-203 AMC, visit Mercury's website at its Web site, or contact Mercury at (866) 627-6951 or webinfo@mc.com.