Texas Instruments and AirHop Communications announce advanced SON software optimized for TI's KeyStone-based small cell solutions

LONDON, June 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Small Cells World Summit – Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) and AirHop Communications, the leading provider of advanced radio access network (RAN) intelligence solutions for heterogeneous networks (HetNet), today announced their collaboration to integrate AirHop's eSON™ advanced self-organizing network (SON) software on TI's KeyStone-based small cell System-on-Chips (SoCs). With this integrated solution, developers using TI's TMS320TCI6612, TMS320TCI6614 and TMS320TCI6636 SoCs will be able to design small cell base stations that will facilitate operators' ability to deploy heterogeneous networks.

To meet escalating demand for mobile data, network operators are turning to small cell base stations to increase capacity and complement existing macrocell networks. The resulting HetNet requires SON technology specifically designed for small cell networks to actively optimize system capacity and manage inter-cell interference. The combined TI and AirHop solution helps base station vendors get to market quickly with high performance small cells that satisfy telecom operators' requirements for HetNet applications.

TI's scalable KeyStone architecture includes support for both TMS320C66x digital signal processor (DSP) generation cores and multiple cache coherent quad ARM® Cortex™-A15 clusters, for a mixture of up to 32 DSP and RISC cores. In addition, TI's KeyStone architecture includes fully offloaded, flexible packet and security coprocessors and capacity expansion for SoC structural elements such as TeraNet, Multicore Navigator and Multicore Shared Memory Controller (MSMC). These structural elements provide a seamless integration between the DSP and ARM RISC cores, allowing base stations developers to fully utilize the capability of all processing elements, including the cores and enhanced AccelerationPacs.

AirHop's eSON software delivers multi-cell coordination and optimization that can be deployed in fully distributed, centralized or hybrid architectures and, for maximum flexibility, can be located anywhere in the core network cloud and on a variety of network edge devices. TI's KeyStone multicore SoC architecture enables more efficient measurements from the lower level PHY stack, required by the higher level SON algorithms, resulting in optimized SON solutions for customers.

"AirHop is a technology leader in helping carriers and equipment vendors use SON to optimize capacity and manage the interferences in small cell deployment, making us a natural choice to work with TI on its LTE small cell SoCs, which are the most competitive in the industry," said Yan Hui, co-founder and CEO of AirHop. "As TI's vendor of choice for SON software, we have worked closely with TI to optimize our software for its KeyStone-based small cell SoCs and look forward to delivering software solutions to TI's customers."

"The management, configuration of and interference cancellation between macro cells and small cells is one of the largest barriers to mass deployment of small cells today," said Sameer Wasson, business manager, wireless base station infrastructure, TI. "TI's small cell SoCs are in production and in development with leading base station vendors today, and with this integration of AirHop's SON software, we can truly enable operators to overcome some of the early challenges of HetNet deployments and advance the installation of small cells."

Availability
AirHop's SON software support will be available for TI's KeyStone-based small cell solutions in the second half of 2012. For more information please visit www.ti.com/multicore or www.airhopcomm.com.

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About TI's KeyStone multicore architecture
TI's KeyStone multicore architecture is the platform for true multicore innovation, offering developers a robust portfolio of high performance, low-power multicore devices. Unleashing breakthrough performance, the KeyStone architecture is the foundation upon which TI's new TMS320C66x DSP generation was developed. KeyStone differs from any other multicore architecture as it has the capacity to provide full processing capability to every core in a multicore device. KeyStone-based devices are optimized for high performance markets including wireless base stations, mission critical, test and automation, medical imaging and high performance computing. Learn more at www.ti.com/multicore.

About AirHop's Advanced SON
AirHop's advanced RAN Intelligence solutions manage interference and optimize system capacity in a multi-cell and multiple network configurations. AirHop's eSON™ software suite provides real-time optimization of available radio resources via multi-cell coordination to effectively provide coverage, capacity and quality of service (QoS) for each cell and individual user. This is especially critical in HetNet deployments where a large number of unplanned small cells can exist within a macro-cell. Visit www.airhopcomm.com for more information.

About AirHop Communications
Founded in 2007, AirHop provides advanced RAN intelligence critical to the next wave of the mobile Internet. AirHop's eSON products are the first to completely address the installation, operation and performance challenges of multi-layer, small cell deployments. AirHop is privately held and based in San Diego, CA. For more information, please visit www.airhopcomm.com.

About Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments semiconductor innovations help 90,000 customers unlock the possibilities of the world as it could be – smarter, safer, greener, healthier and more fun. Our commitment to building a better future is ingrained in everything we do – from the responsible manufacturing of our semiconductors, to caring for our employees, to giving back inside our communities. This is just the beginning of our story. Learn more at www.ti.com.

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SOURCE Texas Instruments Incorporated