At this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Analog Devices launched a fully integrated open radio unit (O-RU) reference design platform to help radio designers reduce risk and time to market.

The platform is complete from the optical fronthaul to RF and allows for hardware and software customisation for macro and small cell RUs. The platform leverages technologies that drive 4G and 5G RU requirements and includes support for all sub-6GHz band and power variants, including multi-band applications.

With the timeline for O-RUs becoming more stringent, and operator requirements more demanding and complex, RU developer resources are stretched thin. By leveraging this complete RU with collateral resources, designers can focus on innovation, enabling their companies to compete for more RU design opportunities.

The ADRV904x-RD O-RU reference design platform includes the Massachusetts company’s fifth generation 8T8R RadioVerse SoC with digital front end including field proven digital pre-distortion (DPD). The commercial O-RAN 7.2a IP stack is hosted on Intel’s Agilex 7 F-series FPGA. The platform has been tested with Radisys Layer 2/3 software running on Intel FlexRan server hardware for 8T8R macro deployments.

“The design resources required to complete advanced RU designs are significant,” said Joe Barry, vice president at Analog Devices. “Together with Intel and Radisys, we are enabling a more robust O-RAN ecosystem by offering a complete RU design platform with confirmed interoperability. We are pleased to work together with Intel and Radisys to accelerate Open RAN’s potential.”

Mike Fitton, vice president of Intel’s network business division, added: “In the radio market, customers need the ability to build cutting edge systems that fit the dynamic standards we see today. The ADRV904x-RD O-RU complements our high performance Agilex 7 F-series FPGA in achieving this goal. Our broad silicon portfolio, in combination with Analog Devices’ fifth generation 8T8R RadioVerse SoC with DFE, enables customers to accommodate a broad set of applications with differentiating feature sets.”

And Munish Chhabra, senior vice president at Radisys, said: “Radisys is pleased to continue the collaboration with Intel and Analog Devices to provide our award winning, Release 17 compliant, Connect RAN 5G software. Ease of integration and performance benchmarking with this advanced open radio design is an important step towards unlocking the full potential of Open RAN.”