Software Defined Radio: Baseband Technologies for 3G Handsets and Basestations

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Open Mobile Handset Architectures Based on the ZSP500 Embedded DSP Core

Jitendra Rayala and Wei-Jei Song

LSI Logic Corporation

2.1. Introduction

Over the last decade, wireless communications has grown rapidly to provide high quality voice services to hundreds of millions of users worldwide. One of the main reasons for this has been the availability of increasingly affordable and small mobile handsets. These mobile handsets have been evolving over the years, adding newer features and lower power consumption, thereby increasing the battery life and reducing the overall size of the handset. Programmable DSPs have been instrumental in making these handsets available with the right features at the right moment in time. This ability of being able to implement complex wireless systems on programmable devices is the first step towards the future goal of realizing complete software radio systems.

With the advent of commercially available and reliable Internet services over a fiber-optic backbone, a demand for high data rate Internet services over wireless devices has emerged, resulting in the need for wireless Internet connectivity over a metropolitan area alongside the voice services that the present networks provide. In order to address this need for data services, newer standards have been developed, collectively called the 2.5G/3G technologies. 2.5G/3G mobile handsets are expected to provide high-rate data services for users in addition to today's voice services. It is expected that ...