LTE and LTE advanced baseband processing get performance boost from MIPS multi-threaded cores

Imagination Technologies joins with SAI Technology and Mentor Graphics to demonstrate user equipment reference platforms at Mobile World Congress

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, Barcelona, Spain – 25th  February 2013 – Imagination Technologies (IMG.L), a leading multimedia, processor, communications and cloud technologies company, announces that its multi-threaded MIPS® processor cores show significant performance benefits compared to single-threaded platforms for LTE baseband processing in user equipment (UE) such as mobile handsets and tablets. Results were achieved on reference platforms for both LTE and LTE Advanced, which will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress, being held February 25 – 28, in Barcelona, Spain.

Leveraging the power-efficient MIPS multi-threaded cores, Imagination and SAI Technology achieved a performance increase of 45% over a single-threaded platform when executing SAI’s LTE Advanced software stacks on SMP Linux**. As the next major milestone in LTE evolution, LTE Advanced signifies a dramatic increase in network capacity and considerably higher data rates enabling high bandwidth, media-rich services to be delivered to residential and business/enterprise users. Designers of next-generation systems such as picocells, femtocells and advanced handsets can leverage the MIPS-Based™ multi-threaded solution—which supports new LTE Advanced Release 10 features including carrier aggregation, as well as MIMO, EMBMS and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE)—to build high-performance, low-power products.

Imagination is also teaming up with SAI and Mentor Graphics to create an integrated multi-threaded solution for 4G LTE. The solution will include multi-threaded MIPS processor cores, the popular Mentor Nucleus® VSMP Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and LTE software stacks from SAI that are optimized to take advantage of multi-threading. For LTE systems such as dongles, smartphones, tablets, and high-volume embedded devices within the ‘Internet of Things,’ the MIPS-Based multi-threaded solution can enable designers to build products with advanced real-time capabilities, low power consumption, and high performance.

Both the LTE and LTE Advanced reference platforms highlight the benefits and feasibility of integrating the solution elements into production 4G systems. Imagination’s proven multi-threaded MIPS processors, including the popular MIPS® 34K™ core and the latest generation interAptiv™ multiprocessor, are available for licensing today. Designers can get a head start on creating a broad range of highly performance-efficient LTE systems by leveraging multi-threaded MIPS cores together with SAI’s verified software stacks for LTE and LTE Advanced Systems, as well as industry-standard SMP Linux and Mentor Graphics’ Nucleus RTOS. Companies can also benefit from the scalability of the solutions, leveraging common tools and architecture for development across a wide range of mobile and wireless systems.

Demonstrations at Mobile World Congress

At Mobile World Congress, Imagination will demonstrate the performance advantages for both LTE and LTE Advanced systems. To schedule an appointment, contact mwc@imgtec.com.

Supporting Quotes

“We have always understood the unique benefits of hardware multi-threading for mobile and wireless applications. Indeed, that was one of the attractions that MIPS offered Imagination. Thanks to our partnerships with SAI and Mentor, we can now demonstrate how this translates into competitive advantage for LTE systems. These solutions are showpieces for the performance efficiency of the MIPS architecture.”

—Tony King-Smith, EVP marketing, Imagination Technologies

“Embedded developers can achieve gains in system performance at a much lower cost with the combination of Imagination’s multi-threaded MIPS processors, SAI’s LTE protocol stacks, and Mentor’s Nucleus RTOS. We see particularly exciting opportunities for this combined solution as internet connectivity spreads to everyday devices and LTE becomes standard across many embedded IoT devices. With Nucleus, developers can take advantage of advanced power management capabilities from one of the most highly deployed real-time operating systems in the industry.”

—Scot Morrison, general manager of Embedded Runtime Solutions at Mentor Graphics

“As OEMs continuously look for ways to differentiate and get products to market more quickly, we are pleased to work with Imagination and Mentor to show how companies can attain differentiation through the performance and efficiency benefits of multi-threading, and also to deliver proven reference platforms to enable them to quickly create next-generation LTE systems.”

—Dr. Venkat Rayapati, CEO, SAI Technology, Inc.

About the Mentor Nucleus RTOS

Used in more than 2.3 billon mobile handsets, the Mentor® Embedded Nucleus product is a proven, highly efficient, and reliable operating system. The Nucleus RTOS delivers high performance while optimizing resource usage in a single-OS or multi-OS platform. Built with a framework for high efficiency and power management, the Nucleus RTOS is ideal for memory resource-constrained devices and for systems where maximizing cycles-per-watt to conserve power is critical. For further information on the new Nucleus-based technologies, visit the company website at www.mentor.com/nucleus.

About SAI’s LTE and LTE Advanced Protocol Stacks

SAI’s LTE UE and eNB small cell proven and third party IOT tested protocol stacks comply with the latest LTE and LTE Advanced specifications, and are customizable for OEMs’ specific needs. 3GPP compliant stacks are performance optimized for layer 2, layer 3 and application layers, enabling uplink and downlink data rates supporting Cat-1 to Cat-4 and higher. The SAI LTE Protocol Stack Architecture is designed to be modular, scalable and portable to different hardware platforms, and multiple operating systems (Linux, Nucleus, Android, Vx Works) with low CPU utilization and small memory footprint. SAI provides design services and customization for porting, integration, IOT, customization to build LTE products for customers. SAI provides LTE UE and eNB small cell PHY, protocol stacks and radios to enable complete system products.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies - a global leader in multimedia, processor and communication technologies - creates and licenses market-leading processor solutions including graphics, video, vision, CPU & embedded processing, multi-standard communications, cross-platform V.VoIP & VoLTE and cloud connectivity. These silicon and software intellectual property (IP) solutions for systems-on-chip (SoC) are complemented by an extensive portfolio of software, tools and ecosystems. Target markets include mobile phone, connected home consumer, mobile and tablet computing, in-car electronics, networking, telecoms, health, smart energy and connected sensors. Imagination's licensees include many of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers, network operators and OEM/ODMs. Corporate headquarters are located in the United Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See: www.imgtec.com.