Xilinx and BEEcube Announce Highly Scalable Prototyping Platform for 5G Massive MIMO Antenna Systems

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 25, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) and BEEcube today announced a highly scalable prototyping platform for 5G massive MIMO antenna systems. The new MegaBEE prototyping platform supports up to 256x256 antennas and provides all the elements necessary to put a massive MIMO system on the air within LTE bands and without external hardware. At the heart of the MegaBEE platform is the Zynq® All Programmable SoC, bringing unmatched programmable hardware and software performance, functionality, flexibility, and integration to early 5G prototyping systems.

"The MegaBEE platform delivers all the required elements for 5G massive MIMO prototyping in one box, greatly simplifying the task of building a system and freeing designers up to focus on algorithms instead of the interfaces around the periphery of their design," said Chen Chang, BEEcube founder and CEO. "Our tier one customers have pushed us hard to create an easy-to-use yet powerful MIMO prototyping platform and together with Xilinx, we've done just that."

The MegaBEE platform's unique clocking structure allows antenna modules to be dispersed over a three mile radius while maintaining phase coherence, enabling the system to be used for distributed MIMO as well as massive MIMO systems with greater coverage and capacity. Included in the MegaBEE platform are RF chains, filters, power amps, 4000 parallel DSP slices, processor cores, multiple channels of 10GE interconnect, and on-board DDR3 memory for storing real-time 5G test vectors. In addition, Xilinx's Zynq All Programmable SoCs enable the massive compute bandwidth demanded by massive MIMO algorithms with an architecture featuring high-speed logic fabric, DSP blocks, Block RAM capable of running 491MHz+, and SERDES able to run at up to 12.5Gbps. The Zynq SoC's dual-core ARM® Cortex® A9 MPCores enable a Linux cluster architecture unique in the 5G prototyping space. MegaBEE also fully integrates with the Xilinx® Vivado® tool suite to significantly reduce development time for early 5G systems, while providing a library of IP to implement all inter-chip communication.

"Xilinx devices have long been used in wireless infrastructure equipment due to their unique properties of being fully programmable and high performance. MegaBEE's Linux cluster for distributed control is one of the most innovative uses of Zynq's dual ARM cores that I have seen," said Ivo Bolsens, Xilinx CTO and senior vice president. "In choosing the Zynq SoC, BEEcube was able to develop a highly innovative, extremely flexible 5G prototyping system that significantly shortens development time."

Xilinx and BEEcube representatives will be available at Mobile World Congress, March 2-5, 2015 to discuss this new prototyping platform. For inquiries or to schedule a meeting, contact David Hawke at [email protected] or David Squires at [email protected].

Availability
The MegaBEE platform is available starting in March 2015. Pricing varies depending on supported array size. For more information, please visit http://www.beecube.com/products/MegaBEE.asp. For more information about Zynq All Programmable SoCs visit http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon-devices/soc.html.   

About BEEcube
A member of the Xilinx Alliance Program, BEEcube is at the forefront of technology innovation within the telecommunications market and is a leading supplier of advanced all programmable communication platforms used in industry, defense, education and research for real-time prototyping, development and field testing of wireless communications applications such as massive MIMO, mmWave, and LTE-Advanced. For more information, contact [email protected] or visit the website: www.beecube.com.

About Xilinx
Xilinx is the world's leading provider of All Programmable FPGAs, SoCs, and 3D ICs. These industry-leading devices are coupled with a next-generation design environment and IP to serve a broad range of customer needs, from programmable logic to programmable systems integration. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.

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© Copyright 2015 Xilinx, Inc. Xilinx, the Xilinx logo, Artix, ISE, Kintex, Spartan, Virtex, Vivado, Zynq, and other designated brands included herein are trademarks of Xilinx in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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