LEOphy - 5G NTN complete high PHY solution

Overview

As the wireless telecommunication industry evolves to become open, virtualized and disaggregated, there is an increased need for interoperable solutions to cater to the expanding ecosystem.

Constellations of 5G satellites can play a vital role in completing the technology and connectivity ecosystem needed for automation and IoT adoption, and are being used to address critical connectivity challenges, such as data speed and coverage limitations for several important applications such as remote sensing, video surveillance, UAVs and drones, geo-positioning, backhaul solutions, and general data connectivity.

* AccelerComm™ LEOphy is an optimized Split 6 RU High PHY implementation that can be integrated with a Low PHY to provide a complete in-line 5G NR L1.
* The reference system has been tested for conformance on a 3rd party development board and partner low phy with the L1 protocol stack executing software on embedded arm cores and performance critical accelerator blocks provided in rtl.
* The power-efficient LEOphy solution has been optimized to deliver maximum flexibility and reliability to enable more efficient 5G satellite communications, boasting the lowest error rates while also consuming less power than competing products.

As a result it ensures a high-reliability link without having to resort to higher coding rates and low modulation schemes, thereby maximizing spectral efficiency, particularly important in satellites where channel capacity is highly constrained, compared to terrestrial networks.

The solution includes both Downlink and Uplink for Control and Data PHY channels, providing the functionality of channel estimation, MIMO equalisation, QAM modulation/demodulation, along with the high-performance AccelerComm™ LDPC channel coding. The high-level block diagram below shows the various functions of the LEOphy solution.

Key Features

  • Complete implementation as per 3GPP standards and O-RAN SCF specifications.
  • A full Layer 1 PHY designed and developed by AccelerComm™ using a mixture of hardware and software optimized to meet the needs of satellite vendors.
  • Openly Licensable.
  • Pre-integrated with AccelerComm™ LDPC and Polar encoder/decoder chains and inherits all the benefits from these highly performant products.
  • Minimize error floors to almost completely avoid retransmissions that present a particular challenge to satellite applications.
  • Configurable to support maximum throughputs and minimum timing requirements for all numerologies.
  • Efficient design that saves device area and power.
  • Easy to integrate using industry standard AXI interfaces.
  • Critical performance algorithms implemented in hardware and maximum flexibility through optimised arm code running on A53’s.
  • Fully tested for conformance to the 3GPP standard.

Block Diagram

LEOphy - 5G NTN complete high PHY solution Block Diagram

Deliverables

  • RTL
  • C/Matlab Models
  • Test bench

Technical Specifications

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Semiconductor IP