More NVIDIA Icera i500 Details - 28nm HP, Category 3 LTE At Launch, 4 Later
by Brian Klug on January 7, 2013 4:01 AM EST- Posted in
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- Icera
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- NVIDIA
We've confirmed some more details about NVIDIA's newly-announced Icera i500 Soft Modem. First, the Icera i500 is built on TSMC's 28nm HP (High Performance) High-K Metal Gate process. NVIDIA's strategy with i500 is to take advantage of the lower active power compared to LP and power gate the core entirely while the modem is not active. In addition, NVIDIA claims i500 can actively power gate each of the individual 8 processing cores inside as load conditions change or depending on the software package loaded onto the modem.
The i500 soft modem will also be paired with an entirely new transceiver, built on 65nm LP CMOS, I'm told this isn't TSMC's RF CMOS but rather some other "RF-friendly" 65nm process. In addition NVIDIA's target is a similar number of ports to Qualcomm, 7, before adding switches. I didn't get a high/mid/low band breakdown.
Initially i500 will be capable of UE Category 3 LTE (100 Mbps downlink on 20 MHz FDD-LTE) and a later release will enable UE Category 4 LTE, which is one of the nice software upgradeable parts of an SDR architecture. On the WCDMA/HSPA+ side, DC-HSPA+ (42 Mbps downlink) is supported. I'm told that the initial 3GPP release will be 9, and later 10 with LTE Category 4 and carrier aggregation for LTE. i500 at present I'm told includes 3GPP family air interfaces (GSM/EDGE/WCDMA/LTE), no word on CDMA2000 1x/EVDO 3GPP2 suite making it. Voice modes including VoLTE are indeed supported as well.
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CeriseCogburn - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Revolutionaryname99 - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
How revolutionary? Obviously doing the baseband processing is nothing new (though nice to see competition for Qualcomm).The real issue, what makes it a genuine soft radio, is do they doing the RF filtering digitally? Or, to put it it differently and to get to the real point, can you tell this thing to lock onto any damn weird frequency (or pair or triplet or quadruplet) of LTE frequencies, all ten kazillion combos defined by 4GPP, and it will just work? In other words, an end to all the "which LTE bands does this phone support" nonsense?
Rayb - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 - link
You might want to read the last paragraph again if you aren't clear on the specs of the modem..."
Initially i500 will be capable of UE Category 3 LTE (100 Mbps downlink on 20 MHz FDD-LTE) and a later release will enable UE Category 4 LTE, which is one of the nice software upgradeable parts of an SDR architecture. On the WCDMA/HSPA+ side, DC-HSPA+ (42 Mbps downlink) is supported. I'm told that the initial 3GPP release will be 9, and later 10 with LTE Category 4 and carrier aggregation for LTE. i500 at present I'm told includes 3GPP family air interfaces (GSM/EDGE/WCDMA/LTE), no word on CDMA2000 1x/EVDO 3GPP2 suite making it. Voice modes including VoLTE are indeed supported as well. "
It can work with any FDD-LTE bands, only limited by the software installed.
name99 - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 - link
That doesn't answer the question of whether it is doing the RF filtering digitally or not. A Qualcomm chip can ALSO work with any FDD-LTE bands, but it has to be fed by an RF front-end which filters the signal (these days usually through an electro-mechanical surface wave resonator).bogdanjerkosovic - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
I don't think doing FDD filtering digitally is reasonable with human technology because no one can manufacture an ADC with that kind of s/n. Am I missing something, name99?