WLAN algorithm and ASIC implementation
In the joint Industry and University project under ACREO (a Swedish Research Institute, see link), a highly integrated System in package (SIP) demonstrator chip set was developed - a Software Defined Radio demonstrator project. The system consisted of a tranceiver chip solution with RF, analog, mixed and digital parts supporting the 3G standard WCDMA as well as different WLANstandards (Wireless Local Area Networks such as 802.11a, b and g). Some additional transceiver requirements were: an effective implementation, a small size and low power consumption. For these reasons it was not possible to just add transceivers in parallell for the different standards. Instead, the SoCTRix used a SW controlled radio technique (SDR-Software Defined Radio) where the transceiver was adapted for the actual standard needed for the bandwidth, dynamic range, and signal requirements. For the base band part, supporting the 802. standards.
BitSim has been part of the system architecture definition, algorithm development and system level simultation. BitSim has also been responsible for the implementation of certain algorithms in VHDL and synthesis. In addition, BitSim has developed the 802.11.a receiver algorithm for the constellation demapping, deinterleaving and viterbi decoding. Supported modulation types are BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM and 256-QAM. Data frequencies supported are 6 Mbps for the lowest modulation type up to 72 Mbps for the highest. Further BitSim has had the responsibility to analyze the capacity requirements for each standard for the whole transmit and receiver chain, as well as the partitioning of signal processing HW and SW.
Some tools that have been used are: ADS (Agilent), Modelsim (Mentor Graphics) and Design Compiler (Synopsys). The industrial partners in addition to BitSim were: FOI (Sweden), VIA Technology (Taiwan), Samsung (South Corea), ARC Cores (UK), Agilent (USA), Catena (Holland), Jazz Semiconductor (USA), Cadence (USA), Shanghai IC R&D Center (China) and Chartered Semiconductor (Singapore). The following Universities also participated with a number of PhD level research projects: Royal Institute of Technology, Lund Institute of Technology, Linköping University, Chalmers University of Technology, Mid Sweden University, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Mälardalen University.
