Massive MIMO solutions set for Q4 availability
The availability of Open RAN-compatible massive MIMO radios has been on operator wish lists for some time as they look to bring disaggregated radio access network kit into more demanding, urban deployments. Cloud-native network specialist Mavenir this week said it’s working with Xilinx to combine its vRAN software with the chipmaker’s RF system on chip and AI tech to bring new massive MIMO solutions to market in the fourth quarter.
Mavenir said in a press release it’s working with Xilinx on a 4G/5G O-RAN massive MIMO portfolio with a 64T/64R configuration that supports up to a 400 megahertz bandwidth.
Mavenir CEO Pardeep Kohli called the development “an important milestone in the delivery of open and interoperable interfaces enabling the deployment of mMIMO in high density, high mobile traffic metro areas.”
Xilinix is bringing to the table its RFSoC DFE and Versal AI solution for “advanced beamforming, delivering a fully integrated hardware and software O-RAN compliant mMIMO solution.”
Xilinix has been focused for some time on supporting Open RAN deployments. Last year the company began shipping a T1 Telco Accelerator Card designed to simplify Open RAN fronthaul termination at distributed units. The firm has been working for more than a year with Telefonica in support of the multi-national operator’s plan to use Open RAN equipment across its footprint.
Mavenir also partnering with NVIDIA on AI/5G for Industry 4.0 enablement
Mavenir also announced this week that it’s using NVIDIA hardware and software to build an AI-on-5G Hyper Converged Edge solution for bandwidth and latency intensive Industry 4.0 use cases, including industrial IoT, video analytics, extended reality and, on the consumer side, gaming. In a statement, Mavenir called out opportunities in high-value verticals manufacturing, mining and healthcare with specific use cases like “immersive collaboration, precision robotics control, people safety, intrusion detection, smart connected factories, real-time manufacturing component defect detection and proactive maintenance using real-time analytics of sensor data.”
NVIDIA is hosting its annual GPU Technology Conference this week and has touted the combo of 5G and AI as having “significant implications,” according to Ronnie Vasishta, senior vice president of NVIDIA’s telecom business unit. “To bring the true vision of AI applications, you need 5G,” he said during a press briefing. “AI-on-5G brings enhanced uplink and downlink speeds, coverage, mobility support, configuration quality of service and quality of experience [and] improved reliability and security to these over-the-top AI-enabled services.”
