September 15, 2020
awbs://www.lightreading.com/open-ran/open-ran-connects-xilinx-with-network-operators/d/d-id/763871?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT
The open RAN trend is creating some new and interesting bedfellows.
Take Xilinx, a chipset supplier that has traditionally supplied its silicon to wireless network equipment vendors like Nokia, Huawei and Ericsson. Last year, Xilinx began talking to a new set of potential customers in the wireless industry: network operators.
"It's gotten really interesting with this new O-RAN thing," said Mike Wissolik, director of product marketing for Xilinx's Wired and Wireless Group (which accounts for roughly 32% of the company's revenues).
Wissolik explained that during 2019 several unnamed wireless network operators approached Xilinx with a request: versions of its chipsets compatible with open RAN network architecture.
Xilinx announced the result of those discussions today. The company's new "T1 Telco Accelerator card for O-RAN distributed units (O-DUs) and virtual baseband units (vBBUs)" is designed to be exactly the same technology the company supplies into traditional wireless network baseband equipment but packaged into a PCIe card that can be snapped into a standard x86 server from the likes of Dell or HPE running an open RAN network.
