Blu Wireless HYDRA 1.X mmWave IP validated in successful real-world trial

by Blu Wireless

IEEE802.11ad P2P / P2MP technology design, with the needs of carrier-grade infrastructure deployment in mind, has undergone a successful trial.

Blu Wireless celebrates a successful trial of its HYDRA1.X IEEE 802.11ad baseband IP on the Bristol is Open trial network in its home city of Bristol. With the HYDRA1.X System IP including a number of 802.11ay and other novel features, such as advanced co-channel mitigation, 64QAM, dynamic TSMA scheduling, flexible sub-channelization and others; the IDT’s RWM6050 RapidWaveTM modem IC, based on BluWireless’ IP is available now to address the most demanding infrastructure, transport and consumer applications of tomorrow.

Already designed into multiple customer products, the RWM6050 also forms the basis of the Typhoon family of powerful mmWave SDN evaluation platforms specifically designed for mmWave 5G networking trials – such as those at the Liverpool 5G eHealth and Autoair transport testbeds funded by the UK government.

HYDRA1.X is Blu Wireless Technology’s flexible baseband IP for IEEE 802.11-2012 DMG (WiGig) Gigabit wireless ICs and is compatible with process nodes of 28nm or lower and is available for licensing now. The flexible HYDRA1.X is compatible with all mainstream beam-forming radios across both licensed and unlicensed bands up to 64QAM and comes with a fully supported network driver host software for Linux.

In addition to standards-defined features, Blu Wireless IP brings enhancements for infrastructure applications ranging from 4G/5G backhaul, last 100m connectivity for FTTC, Fixed Wireless Access and connectivity to high-speed transport. These enhancements include: robust interference mitigation and management, sub-channelisation, QoS extended schedule elements and on-path support for IEEE 1588v2 synchronisation. The baseband also includes features to maximise host throughput including an aggregated MAC protocol data unit and aggregated MAC service data unit giving up to 1M packets per second with checksum offload.

The Blu Wireless HYDRA1.X technology is based on multiple, inter-connected parallel paths between Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Medium Access Control (MAC) functions, allowing new features to be quickly developed and maintained in response to customer, industry and regulatory requirements. The technology combines programmable and fixed-function units optimised for specific target applications and can deliver multi-gigabit throughput with low power consumption.

Blu Wireless has designed its HYDRA 1.X System IP software from the ground-up, inclusive of PHY, MAC. Backed by in-house IC design and applications teams, specialist RF experts and market professionals with many decades of experience; Blu Wireless is committed to providing its baseband IC customers with a complete service including product definition and implementation of final silicon and is confident in its ability to deliver the right first-time success.

 Henry Nurser, Blu Wireless CEO said: “Working with our lead licensee IDT and Bristol is Open as a local testbed, we are proud to have developed and then fully validated the HYDRA1.X System IP in a real-life environment. We anticipate exciting times as our low cost multi-Gigabit networking technology is brought to the market, and we look forward to working closely with all the members of the Blu Wireless ecosystem during the coming months, and years. The journey has just begun!”

Contact info@bluwirelesstechnology.com for further information on the HYDRA1.X System IP and Typhoon family of evaluation platforms.

About HYDRA PHY

The HYDRA PHY features:

  • IEEE 802.11-2012 DMG PHY
  • frequency domain equalisation (FDE)
  • MCS 0 – 12 (16QAM) and MCS extensions to 64QAM;
  • SISO (single modem)
  • Support for multi-vendor mmWave RF (licensed and unlicensed)
  • Flexible channelisation 110 MHz to 1.76 GHz
  • IQ, DC, PN, FO and CFO digital compensation Interference mitigation

About HYDRA MAC

The HYDRA MAC features:

  • IEEE 802.11-2012 DMG MAC
  • 1Mpps packet rate (IMIX)
  • programmable data plane & real-time scheduler
  • Linux host driver and API
  • point-to-point and point-to-multipoint
  • infrastructure BSS/personal BSS (PBSS)
  • A-MPDU/A-MSDU aggregated MAC protocol data unit, aggregated MAC service data unit
  • DMG channel access
  • advanced block ACK
  • security
  • QoS multiple queue and multi-level support
  • QoS extended schedule elements for fixed TDMA and dynamic TDMA with grant access or EDCA
  • multicast/broadcast traffic
  • scalable point-to-multipoint support (P2MP)
  • co-channel interference management
  • checksum offload
  • 1588v2 synchronisation