Agilent Technologies Inc. introduced a new LTE baseband exploration library for the SystemVue 2009 design platform. The library (version W1912) provides full source-code access to PHY golden reference algorithms that are consistent with the 3GPP LTE March 2009 standard. Agilent’s new LTE library provides key advances for 3GPP LTE baseband algorithm and hardware developers designing next-generation 4G wireless systems, enabling simulation-based throughput performance measurements as well as a graphical user interface that simplifies complex configurations.
Enabling IP Access for 3GPP LTE PHY Design
Agilent’s W1912 simulation library unlocks algorithmic-level source code in C++ and provides working link-level reference designs with test benches based on version 8.6 of the 3GPP LTE TS36-101, 104 standards, including HARQ support. The source code allows engineers to investigate algorithms inside a working LTE baseband PHY, setting breakpoints and saving time by creating critical test vectors and verification suites. Since the W1912 library interoperates with Agilent’s measurement sources (e.g., the N5106A PXB and N5182 MXG), receivers (e.g., the N9020A MXA) and software (e.g., the 89600 VSA), baseband architects can now quickly harden real-world algorithms in emerging areas of FDD LTE, TD-LTE and MIMO. A simulation-only version of the library (W1910) is also available.
“Access to LTE source code is of critical importance in creating the early test solutions hardware developers require to develop high-quality, market-leading LTE user equipment devices and chipsets,” said Niels Faché, vice president and general manager of Agilent’s Mobile Broadband Operation. “Using SystemVue, along with the new LTE model library, for example, we were able to successfully shave three months off the development of a baseband signal-processing implementation for our new E6620A LTE one box tester. With savings like this, SystemVue 2009 and its new LTE library are quickly becoming an indispensable tool for today’s 3GPP LTE baseband algorithm and hardware developers.”
Predictive Throughput Measurements
Agilent also today introduced an innovative new dynamic dataflow simulator mode for SystemVue 2009, which enables simulation-based throughput verification, as specified in version 8.6 of the LTE standard. Baseband designers can now create and verify robust algorithms that ensure system throughput performance and greater coverage of the Layer 1 standard, long before physical prototypes are actually available for test, thus shortening design cycles. This is the result of SystemVue’s new sub-frame communication HARQ support, which extends the physical layer to allow new dynamic behaviors, while retaining the versatility and RF accuracy of the physical layer approach.
Both the source code and compiled-only LTE libraries follow the development cycle from system-level design to test. As blocks move from concept to virtual prototype to working link-level hardware, the libraries’ Source and Receiver user interfaces allow hardware designers to configure test vectors for block-level debug. Throughout the design process, the same environment and test set-ups provide link-level verification against the 3GPP-LTE standard, continuing directly into hardware test.
About SystemVue 2009
SystemVue 2009 is Agilent’s new electronic design automation (EDA) platform for electronic system-level (ESL) design. The new platform cuts physical layer (PHY) design time in half for high-performance communications algorithms and system architectures, for both wireless and aerospace/defense applications.
