LTE processors to get benchmark

February 17, 2011 // Phil Ling

mimoOn is partnering with independent technology analysis firm BDTI to develop benchmarks for the evaluation of processors used in LTE baseband applications. The benchmarks will be embodied in the form of reference code that can be implemented on any programmable hardware platform, allowing benchmark data to be produced across a diverse range of architectures.

With the demand growing for software and silicon solutions for LTE, so also is the demand for benchmarking data to enable reliable comparisons between competing hardware platforms. BDTI and mimoOn are collaborating to create a benchmark suite that will enable rapid and fair comparisons of processing platforms for LTE base stations and terminals.

The LTE standard allows a wide range of configurations for base stations, from a low-bandwidth, single-antenna configuration supporting a few users and low data rates up to configurations supporting 20 MHz bandwidth, more than 8 antennas, and data rates of 300 Mbps or thousands of users in a cell.

Previously, the only way to evaluate a processor's ability to support such configurations was to actually implement an LTE standard-compliant solution on the processor. And even after doing so, it has been impossible to make fair comparisons between processors because of differences in the LTE functionality implemented on each processor. Similarly, it has been virtually impossible to make fair comparisons of processors for LTE terminals in terms of cost and power consumption.

The new benchmark under development by BDTI and mimoOn overcomes these difficulties by providing a uniform workload incorporating the key elements of LTE baseband processing.

Jeff Bier, president and co-founder of BDTI, said: "Over the past 15 years, BDTI's benchmarks have become the gold standard for evaluating processing platforms targeting digital signal processing applications such as wireless communications and multimedia. Now that LTE equipment has become a key growth market for processors, BDTI is pleased to collaborate with mimoOn to bring reliable benchmarks to this space."

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December 15, 2011 | Texas instruments | 222901974

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