Startups are challenging Intel, Qualcomm, and other semiconductor giants with a new on-a-chip (SoC) system that it says is replacing multiple functions of a 5G base station at a fraction of the power and costs.
EdgeQ, which has raised more than $ 50 million in funding since its inception in 2018, is building what it describes as a “chip-on-chip base station” that consumes 50% less power. in less footprint than competitive results in the region. The chip, which is in the final stages of development, features programmable PHY and promises to reduce the total cost of 5G base stations by up to 50% compared to other products, such as Intel CPUs and Xilinx FPGAs. The chip also builds in artificial intelligence features to boost 5G.
California-based startup Santa Clara launched with $ 38.5 million in the first round of funding last year, bringing the total to $ 51 million from investors, bringing includes Threshold Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, as well as one of their anonymous messengers. The company is led by former Qualcomm CEO Vinay Ravuri and has filled their engineering division with former chip designers from Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom.
EdgeQ said it plans to start sampling the chip to potential customers later this year, running business players including Intel, Xilinx, and Marvell-headed in the $ 8 billion market for 5G network equipment. He also announced last month that former Qualcomm CEO and executive chairman Paul Jacobs and CTO Matthew Grob, who both left in 2018, have joined their advisory board.
The startup stands out from other industry players by using RISC-V, the open source guide (ISA) architecture that is a plan for central processing chips. It offers alternaitve to Intel’s X86 and Arm.
Adil Kidwai, vice president and head of product management at EdgeQ, said the baseband modem uses a combination of extended vector extension and custom guidance on top of its six RISC-V CPU cores to support performance and profiles unmatched power with standard 5G modems in the base. stations. He said his cores are typically designed to handle heavy computing operations, including RF signal processing, in both 4G and 5G.
The chip also takes advantage of the fact that the accounts used in 5G networks are largely AI-like. This means that any unused processing power in RISC-V CPU cores can be redistributed as needed to perform AI work. The RISC-V cores can be divided into micro CPUs that run independently of each other. Half of the cores, for example, can be used to run 5G workloads while the other half handles AI.
A base station is a set of boxes that are used to connect smartphones and other devices to cellular networks. Today, these boxes are mostly sold by telecom equipment giants such as Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Huawei Technologies and other vendors as all-in-one systems. These legacy, monolithic systems tend to be proprietary, with specially designed chips at the heart of the hardware, which uses in-house firmware and software. And these pre-integrated boxes go against hardware and software with packages distributed by competitors.
There are often “action splits” within a 5G base station, including the radio unit (RUn) that manages radio frequency functions and the distributed unit (DU) that handles baseband processing tasks .
To scale 5G networks faster and cheaper, business leaders are also investing in a standard for open radio access networks, known as open RANs. The standard uses an open software interface to connect all the building blocks of a base station and ensure they are transitional. That gives telecom companies the flexibility to add features to 5G networks by updating the internal slots. A trade-off is that it costs more to build out energy-efficient open-level stations, the startup said.
EdgeQ said the upcoming chip is designed to cover many of the individual functions of a base station, from front-end and mid-latency transport to time and channel coding to radio frequency (RF) and functions baseband, into a single population chip. with CPU programmable rights. This translates to savings in power and buildings, thus reducing the overall cost of 5G stations over their lifetime.
The start is swaying to win slots in 5G base stations over Intel and Qualcomm semiconductor giants. Qualcomm, which is by far the industry leader in smartphone modem chips, plans to start supplying chips for 5G base stations by 2022. Intel hopes to hold 40% of the global market for base station silicon by the end of the year. The programmed chip giant Xilinx is also trying to expand its footprint in 5G infrastructure.
If the new chip can live up to its promises, it could improve the start-up opportunities to earn business from network gear makers and telecom companies. The company also has to compete indirectly with 5G modems designed specifically by Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, and other telecom gear manufacturers.
According to the starter, one of its advantages is its flexibility. The modem chip is fully programmed in the popular C and C ++ languages, making it easier for original equipment manufacturers and network operators who purchase from them to program more advanced 5G features into the L1 PHY. These include features that can cut 5G network latency or improve positioning, beamforming, and large MIMO.
This will allow the baseband modem to be upgraded to accommodate future upgrades to 5G status. Ultimately, this is cheaper than renewing the goods at the base station every two years.
The startup also focused on its advantage over the face of information robotics. Using AI, the chip could be used to develop a large MIMO, which uses thick beams to shoot 5G transmissions directly to devices instead of throwing signals in wide cone as flood light. It could also use AI to design the best transmission path for the beams – called beamforming – to further advance 5G connections.
There are other ways to combine AI and 5G, the company said. The modem chip could also use AI to identify interference in 5G networks and escape by migrating to less crowded frequency bands.
“The future of 5G comes with changes in the architecture of cellular networks,” Jacobs, a former Qualcomm CEO, said in a statement. The EdgeQ solution, based on the open design of RISC-V processors, enables deeper innovation in wireless technology. steel. This allows for both general performance improvements as well as wireless systems design tailored to specific use cases. “
The startup said the architecture of the modem chip could change in the future for other markets – from factory floors and cars to smartphones and other devices that could be developed with AI and 5G.