Mobile World Congress Americas 2019 — NXP Semiconductors and Sivers IMA plan to offer integrated solutions for 5G, combining NXP’s Layerscape® programmable baseband with Sivers IMA’s 5G New Radio (NR) RFICs and phased-array antennas, targeting applications such as fixed wireless access.

Anders Storm, CEO of Sivers IMA, said, “The integration between NXP’s baseband and our chip and antenna offers a state-of-the-art solution and a quick time to market for customers who want to offer 5G NR products, for example customer premises units or small cells for gigabit fixed wireless access applications and integrated access and backhaul.”

Sivers IMA has developed RFICs for the 28 GHz 5G and 60 GHz unlicensed bands. Sivers says their RFIC designs consume low DC power and use few components, which reduces cost. With a zero IF architecture, the RFICs integrate well with NXP’s baseband processors.

NXP’s Layerscape Access portfolio of programmable baseband processors are compatible with the initiative to develop open radio access networks, termed O-RAN. Using NXP’s Layerscape multi-core ARM SoCs and the EdgeVerse software framework, designers can deploy 5G access edge systems for various infrastructure applications.

Stuart Forbes, a marketing manager at NXP, said, “Our customers need antenna-to-processor solutions. With Sivers IMA’s know-how and tight system level integration with our zero IF interface, customers will have an optimal production class solution for rapid deployment.”

Shipments of 5G NR mmWave CPE units will exceed 29 million between 2021 and 2025, according to Joe Madden, the principal analyst at Mobile Experts.