Cyclone® III FPGAs deliver abundant memory and dedicated multipliers at a very low cost and very low power to provide the best solution for many emerging wireless applications, including:
- Macro/Micro basestation RF card/remote radio heads
- Macro/Micro basestation channel card
- Pico/Femto basestations
- WiMAX customer premise equipment (CPE)
- Software defined radio (SDR) – enabling complete waveform integration under 1 watt with low static power for battery operation
Take a look at some of the most significant Cyclone III FPGA wireless application advantages:
| Table 1. Key Wireless Application Advantages of Cyclone III FPGAs | |
| Feature | Advantage |
|---|---|
| High Memory and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Multipliers at all Densities |
|
| High Density |
|
| TSMC's 65-nm Low-Power (LP) Process Technology |
|
As shown in Figure 1, a midrange Cyclone III FPGA can also be used effectively as a DSP coprocessor in WiMAX picocell basestations to implement scalable OFDMA engines and DDC and DUC functions. This strategy allows you significant flexibility to partition the functionality between the DSP processor and the FPGA for optimum performance, lowest power consumption, and lowest cost.
Figure 1. Implement IF and Base Band Functionality for Picocell Basestations in Cyclone III Devices
Get to market faster and reduce costs. To get started, Altera offers the design resources shown in Table 2.
| Table 2. Wireless Design Resources | ||
| Category | Resource | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Development Kit Resources | ||
 |
Cyclone III FPGA Starter Kit | This FPGA Starter kit is ideal for quick "out-of-the-box" evaluation experience. For display applications user I/O pins can be configured for LVDS, mini-LVDS, RSDS, or PPDS column driver interfaces. |
| Software and Intellectual Property Resources | ||
 |
Reference Designs | Reference designs from Altera and partners for common wireless communications systems components such as scalable OFDMA reference design, digital down conversion (DDC) and digital up conversion (DUC), and bridges to DSP processors. |
| DSP functions | Library of intellectual property (IP) cores from Altera and partners for the following DSP functional areas: filtering, modulation, demodulation, transforms encryption, decryption, correlation, error detection, error correction, signal generation, and synchronization. | |
| Nios® II Embedded Processor | The world's most versatile processors supported by easy-to-use development tools and a portfolio of FPGA development kits. | |
| White Papers | ||
 |
WiMAX Picocell BaseStation Designs Using DSP Coprocessing with Cyclone III FPGAs |
Discusses implementation of OFDMA, DDC, DUC, and other WiMAX picocell basestation functions in a low cost FPGA to reduce costs and meet stringent power consumption requirements. |
