IMEC launches 'Cobra' cognitive radio baseband

LEUVEN, Belgium — IMEC has announced the latest iteration of its mobile baseband architecture. The cognitive reconfigurable baseband multimode radio, codenamed Cobra, is intended to take communications to 1-Gbits per second while being able sense available spectrum and support multiple asynchronous concurrent streams.

Previously IMEC was targeting 100-Mbit/s communications in a software-defined radio environment.

The next-stage of the work is being done under the auspices of IMEC's Green Radio program which includes industrial partners Panasonic, Renesas, Samsung and IMEC spin-off M4S NV (Leuven, Belgium), now a subsidiary of Option NV (Leuven, Belgium), a supplier of wireless broadband equipment, subsystems and software.

Intended to support 4G and broadband access to multiple services IMEC has already committed its SCALDIO 2B analog front-end to 40-nm CMOS and done spectrum-sensing experiments. The goal is to produce a device that can negotiate and switch between frequencies to use spectrum optimally. At the same time a fully capable 4G platform needs to switch standards, choosing the best option depending on location, user environment and chosen application. And all this additional work must be done on minimal power budgets.

In Cobra IMEC has reused its workhorse ADRES inner-loop DSP engine from earlier software-defined radio work while adding a number of blocks. The multiple asynchronous streams could typically be simultaneous digital broadcasting reception and high-speed internet access. The Cobra architecture can be customized to meet the requirements for many standards including wireless LANs IEEE802.11n to .11ac, cellular LTE and LTE-advanced, and broadcast such as DVB-T/H to DVB-T, IMEC claimed.