CEVA Introduces the World’s Most Advanced Communication DSP, Providing Cutting-Edge Performance for Multi-Gigabit Class Connectivity

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — CEVA, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA), the leading licensor of signal processing IP for smarter, connected devices, today introduced the world’s most advanced communication DSP to meet the extreme performance requirements of multi-gigabit class modems. Capitalizing on the company’s long-standing relationships with world-leading wireless vendors and its unique expertise in DSP architecture design, the CEVA-XC12 is purpose-built from the ground up to solve the most critical challenges of efficiently implementing 5G, gigabit LTE, MU-MIMO Wi-Fi and other multi-gigabit modems. Already licensed to a leading wireless OEM, the CEVA-XC12 delivers up to 8x performance improvement and consumes 50% less power than its predecessor, the CEVA-XC4500, for a complete 5G baseband modem.

Technologies designed for wireless standards such as 5G will be capable of delivering a peak data rate of up to 20 Gbps under ultra-low latency of 1 millisecond. This is achieved utilizing innovative and extremely complex processing techniques such as Massive-MIMO and advanced 3D dynamic beamforming. DSP processors deployed for today’s LTE-Advanced Pro and multi-gigabit wireless standards are simply not capable of efficiently delivering the speed, latency and overall DSP performance required to address the massive technology leap to 5G.

The CEVA-XC12 is the industry’s first DSP architecture offering the raw performance and power efficiency that is fundamental to the success of multi-gigabit class modems. Thanks to its flexible architecture with multiple optional features, it can be custom configured and scaled to address a wide range of applications. This includes smartphones and other terminals, advanced and centralized access points, small cells, macro cells and cloud RAN (C-RAN). It supports the full gamut of 5G use cases and deployment scenarios, from 80 GHz mmWave down to 450 MHz spectrum bands. In addition to 5G, CEVA-XC12 is well-suited for the design of LTE-Advanced Pro Evolution, enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), MulteFire carrier aggregation and LWA (LTE/Wi-Fi Aggregation), cellular V2X, Wi-Fi 802.11ax, WiGig 802.11ad, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and Virtual Reality (VR) systems.

Jim McGregor, principal analyst at TIRIAS Research, commented: “With the introduction of 5G, the 3GPP is promising a higher data rate with more reliable and responsive services. To achieve this, 5G will deploy new technologies and techniques that will demand a huge increase in DSP performance for the networks and the terminals. With the introduction of the CEVA-XC12, CEVA is directly addressing this DSP performance gap, offering the wireless industry a compelling solution to meet the insatiable demand for data and network capacity in the coming years.”

The CEVA-XC12 DSP architecture is underpinned by six key technology breakthroughs:

• A new micro-architecture to meet very high frequency requirements and ultra-low power consumption – capable of operating at 1.8 GHz in 10 nm and 50% less power than its predecessor, the CEVA-XC4500
• Massive computation capabilities to maintain a high bit-rate – equipped with quad-vector processor engines approaching 1 tera operations per second (TOPs) performance
• New and unique high-precision arithmetic – achieves optimal resolution with up to 256×256 dimension matrix processing
• New specialized instructions to boost all baseband processing components – innovative support for advanced 256 and 1024 QAM demodulation
• New core streaming interfaces – allowing ultra-low latency transfers between cores or accelerators
• New control plane for massive-user management and for multi-RAT (Radio Access Technology) systems – incorporates a Scalar Processing Unit with a CoreMark/MHz score of 4.4 designed to handle huge number of users required for LTE MTC and 5G IoT

The CEVA-XC12 also features a state-of-the-art cache-architecture and support for hardware coherency for seamless multi-core implementations.

Michael Boukaya, vice president and general manager, Wireless Business Unit at CEVA, commented: “To deliver upon the promise of multi-gigabit wireless speeds, an entirely new approach to the underlying vector processor architecture is required. Our CEVA-XC12 is the most powerful communication DSP we have ever designed, incorporating techniques and instructions that are fundamental to the success of 5G baseband systems. We are truly excited about the future of the wireless industry and the possibilities that 5G will enable.”

Availability
The CEVA-XC12 is available for licensing now. For more information on the CEVA-XC12, visit https://launch.ceva-dsp.com/CEVA-XC12.