London needs 70,000 small cells...

For London to offer genuinely world-class, LTE everywhere mobile broadband, it will require the installation of 70,000 small cells across the capital, including 2,000 nodes covering the Underground network by 2015.  Worldwide there needs to be over ten million small cells as well as residential femtocells and WiFi offload. 

These findings were presented by Picochip CTO Dr Doug Pulley at the recent Basestation Conference in Bath.  Read the full Picochip press release and download Dr Pulley's presentation.

This builds on a detailed analysis on the need for next generation network, building on traffic models and the 'data tsunami', to model coverage and capacity needs.  This whitepaper will be available soon.  Please contact us to request a copy.

Dr Pulley will be speaking at the Small Cells World Congress in Berlin; Tues 11 Oct: 16:40pm-17:25pm - 'What are the market drivers and constraints for small cell deployments'.  Get your discounted Delegate pass from us and find out more about this event.

BBC.... Money for masts... rural coverage....

George Osborne, UK Chancellor, announced that up to £150m would be spent to improve mobile rural phone coverage.

Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC Technology Correspondent, highlights how this announcement signals good news for femtocells.  He describes how Vodafone has pioneered the commercial use of femtocell technology and are already trialling femtocells for rural coverage.

Picochip has long proposed the use of small cells to help rural coverage.  The PC333 is the highest performing SoC available, with 2km range and LAB compliance.

Read full BBC article

Rory's rural coverage blog

Picochip offers widest small cell portfolio and announces new Chinese customers

At the 2011 China Femtocell Symposium in September, Picochip announced it has a total of seven TD-SCDMA customers, which includes the recently announced Panda Electronics, alongside BTI, Digimoc and Femtel.

Picochip also offers a complete portfolio for the 'small cell' market with commercial products for WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, LTE-FDD and TD-LTE. 

For WCDMA technology, Picochip has over thirty customers shipping commercial products, including Cisco / ip.access (supplying AT&T and others), Alcatel-Lucent, supplying Vodafone group in ten countries and others.  In addition, Picochip has seventeen customers for its LTE small cell products, for both LTE FDD and TD-LTE.

Read more

Financial Times.... 'virtual' chip maker makes real progress

As part of a series on manufacturing in the 21st Century, the Financial Times recently acknowledged Picochip as a leading example of a 'virtual' manufacturer and recognized the company as the world's biggest producer of chips for small basestations.

Visit the Financial Times website to access the full article

Complete femtocell network in a box

If you are interested in femtocells and small cells and would like to try them out, perform system level test, do in-house evaluation or demonstration, or use a standards compliant femtocell in your organization development labs, Picochip has a family of "femtocell network in a box" products that are explicitly designed for these tasks.

The PC960x LTE system includes Home eNodeB, test UE and EPC emulator.  LTE-FDD is supported now, with TD-LTE available shortly.

The PC9312 is a complete luh compliant femtocell network, with Home eNodeB and core network emulator.

Click here for details and email us for a quote.

Picochip and ASTRI announce first commercial-grade LTE small cell reference design

Picochip and Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) have successfully completed the design and validation of the PC8609, the industry's first commercial-grade LTE FDD femtocell physical layer software.  The PC8609 software is now generally available (GA) to Picochip's customers around the world.

Find out more

The Economist... How the West was won

Britain's tech trailblazers have a western frontier of their own in 'Silicon Gorge', a cluster of microchip firms around Bristol.

The Economist article on UK high-tech start-ups featured Picochip as a leading member of the technology cluster in the South West.

Picochip in video

At the Basestation Conference...

Dr Doug Pulley - CTO - interview by David Chambers - Think Femtocell
Dr Doug Pulley - overview and presentation introduction
Rupert Baines - VP Marketing - interview by David Chambers - Think Femtocell

The Future of Wireless International Conference...

Rupert Baines - VP Marketing - interview by Campbell Black

Picochip in media

BBC  |  Money for masts
CNTN  |  (Video) New mobile technology takes off in China
ECN Europe  |  Picochip and ASTRI announce commercial-grade LTE femtocell reference design
ECN Europe  |  Picochip gains customers in China TD-SCDMA femtocells
Financial Times  |  'Virtual' chip maker makes good progress
Light Reading  |  Picochip: London needs 70,000 small cells
Rethink Wireless  |  London needs 70,000 small cells, says Picochip
The Economist  |  How the west was won
The Sunday Times  |  Britain surfs the digital wave
TMC Net  |  Business of the year line-up - Bath Chronicle

Further opportunities to meet Picochip

Picochip will be participating in the following forthcoming 2011 events and would welcome the opportunity to meet with you there.  Contact us to book a meeting.

Small Cells World Congress: 11-12 October, Berlin
BVCA Summit 2011: 13 October, London
4G World: 24-27 October, Chicago
Cambridge Wireless SIG: 10 November, Cambridge
Femtocell Americas - 5-6 December, San Diego
HetNet Americas - 7-8 December, San Diego

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Interested in finding out further information?

For future updates on femtocells, LTE, HSPA+ WiMAX and multi-core DSP please register if you haven't already done so, and please feel free to contact us.