The Application of FPGAs for Wireless Base-Station Connectivity White Paper (WP450)

This white paper is concerned with connectivity between functional units within conventional and evolved wireless base stations. In-phase/quadrature (I/Q) radio sample distribution between the baseband and radio modules is addressed, as well as internal transport of traff ic and control data within the base station. The white paper is organized as follows: • The Introduction section provides a summary of how Xilinx FPGA products provide an ideal interconnection medium between functional units within wireless base stations. • The Background section provides an overview of the architecture of the conventional wireless base station, a view on how this is likely to evolve to meet future system requirements, and a review of the connectivity solutions typically adopted. • The Xilinx Solutions for Base-Station Connectivity section presents a summary of Xilinx technology solutions for wireless base station connectivity. Both silicon devices and soft IP are addressed. • The FPGA Connectivity Architectures for Base Stations section provides an analysis of basic connectivity requirements and architectures for a range of base-station applications. Several functional enhancements to the basic architecture are then described. • The Conclusion section summarizes the main points of the white paper.