Altera Corporation (Nasdaq:ALTR) customers now have access to CommStack Inc.'s extensive portfolio of advanced wireless intellectual property (IP) for wireless modem applications. As a new member of the Altera Megafunction Partners Program (AMPP), CommStack's engineers receive certified training on Altera system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions which include Altera Excalibur(TM) embedded processor solutions and MegaCore(R) IP functions.
"We look forward to working in tandem with Altera to provide IP as well as design services," said CommStack's Brian Ebert, CEO of CommStack Inc. "As an AMPP(SM) partner, our knowledge of Altera's SOPC solutions, software, and IP cores allows us to provide leading-edge design services for Altera customers."
"CommStack's experience in communication system design, implementation and integration will be a tremendous benefit to our customers," said Craig Lytle, vice president of Altera's intellectual property business unit. "Now our customers have access to leading-edge wireless modem IP, assisting in development of complex SOPC solutions for wireless communications applications."
Commstack will be introducing two classes of cores, each consisting of a number of individual functions which may be combined to provide a complete digital modem solution capable of OC-3 (155 Mbps) data rates and more. One class of modules addresses systems utilizing traditional modulation formats from BPSK and QPSK through 256-QAM. The other class of cores addresses systems based on OFDM modulation, such as those embodying IEEE 802.11a or HiperLAN2 PHY layer standards.
Both classes of cores are particularly well suited for Altera's APEX(TM) and Mercury(TM) families of devices, delivering maximum performance while minimizing area usage. Complete data paths for LMDS, MMDS, and custom applications are now available from CommStack as netlists targeting Altera PLDs.
For both classes, each core utilizes typically 200 to 1000 LEs, thus the entire CommStack modem (OFDM or traditional) can fit comfortably within an APEX 20K400E device. CommStack's OFDM and traditional modem building blocks start at less than $5,000. Customization and full data path design services are also available.
CommStack Building Blocks
Traditional transmitter back-end building blocks made available to Altera customers include pulse-shaping FIRs, a reference-tracking DPLL, resampling interpolators, and an up converter. More highly integrated solutions including a front-end scrambler, FEC encoder, interleaver, and mapper are also available. Traditional receiver building blocks include a down converter, AGC, clock recovery, carrier recovery, matched-filter FIR, and adaptive equalizer circuits.
The OFDM-based transmitter building blocks include an FEC encoder, interleaver/mapper, inverse FFT, waveform constructor, and up converter. OFDM-based receiver cores include the signal detector/AGC, down converter, clock recovery, carrier recovery, waveform preprocessing, FFT, adaptive equalization, and demapping/deinterleaving circuits.
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