ZTE Opts for Freescale QorIQ Qonverge Chip to Power TD-LTE Deployment

Like Huawei, ZTE Corporation is a company that plays a much bigger role in telecommunications and networking than just producing the odd Android, or Firefox OS, handset. For example, last week ZTE rolled out a new 802.11ac dual-band concurrent Wi-Fi VoIP gateway. More recently, the company made a big step toward completing its first ever commercial deployment based on LTE standards.

Specifically, ZTE selected Freescale’s QorIQ Qonverge BSC9132 “base station-on-a-chip” product to power the LTE deployment. This solution will provide embedded intelligence for a new line of femtocell products, which will be deployed later this year.

ZTE’s LTE deployment will be based on the TD-LTE standard, which has been designated by several leading service providers for broad deployment in China, Japan and other markets around the world. TD-LTE technology requires both advanced hardware and software to facilitate the type of performance expected from end users and operators alike.

“ZTE is playing a pivotal role in the build-out of LTE networks across global 4G markets,” said Zhang Shizhuang, TDD product director for ZTE, in a statement. “The performance, energy efficiency and scalability of Freescale’s proven QorIQ Qonverge platform allow us to deliver compelling and highly differentiated products designed to establish an early leadership position in LTE solutions.”

Freescale’s QorIQ Qonverge products share a common architecture and integrate communications processing, digital signal processing and wireless acceleration technologies into a single system-on-a-chip with different configurations optimized for next-generation femtocell, metrocell and macrocell base stations. Advanced process technology and integration, meanwhile, allow for the convergence of various functions that are usually separated.

This integrated design reduces the part count, power consumption, cost and footprint of base stations. Being built on a common, scalable architecture from femtocell to macrocell allows for optimized R&D investments and software reuse.

Freescale Semiconductor is a creator and provider of embedded processing solutions that provides its products to various markets, including automotive, consumer, industrial and networking.