Software defined radio gets configurable RF - 16/05/2007 - Electronics Weekly

TechnoConcepts of Boston, which is developing a re-configurable RF front end for software defined radio (SDR) systems, has a design in which its RF front end is plugged into a re-configurable baseband from PicoChip of Bristol.

The combination allows the possibility of a fully reconfigurable SDR system in which the same piece of silicon can act successively as different radio standards, said the company.

This first platform is confined to WiMAX. Since WiMAX is notorious because the spectrum frequencies allocated to it vary from country to country, 2.1GHz in the US, 2.3GHz in Korea, 2.5GHz in Europe and 3.4GHz, 3.6GHz, and 4.9GHz elsewhere, a reconfigurable platform is a suitable starter product for a re-configurable wireless platform.

“This is very much a Phase One product,” Rupert Baines, v-p for marketing at PicoChip, told EW, “it’s just for WiMAX because it has so many different systems, so many different frequencies.”