Mercury Computer Systems and Texas Instruments Announce a WiMAX AMC for Next- Generation Mobile Broadband Market28 February 2006
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY) and Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) today announced their collaboration on the development of the Mercury MTI-203 AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) for WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) wireless infrastructure digital base band applications.
WiMAX is an evolving standard for point-to-multipoint wireless networking that provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances for a number of applications including high-speed enterprise connectivity for businesses.
The highly integrated module is designed to support TI's newly announced WiMAX/802.16e infrastructure solution for wireless applications, which includes software, analog, and RF products from TI. The multi-standard support for the TMS320TCI6482 digital signal processor (DSP) is expected to provide a fertile development ground for OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), a technique for transmitting large amounts of digital data over a radio wave, and other emerging air interfaces in general.
The Mercury MTI-203 will be anchored with three TCI6482 DSPs and a supporting compute node to create a WiMAX infrastructure base band solution. The module will enable all physical layer (PHY) base band processing required for a 20 MHz, TDD, multi-antenna solution with Smart Antenna MIMO (multiple input/multiple output) enabled. As a base band development platform, the MTI- 203 is designed to support advanced features such as Smart Antenna and MIMO transmission across a breadth of air interfaces. Visit http://www.mc.com/atca for more information on Mercury's AMC modules.
"Combining TI DSPs and an FPGA on the same AMC module provides the best of both worlds -- customers can benefit from partitioning their application to the most appropriate processing technology on the same AMC," said Mark Skalabrin, Vice President and General Manager of the Advanced Solutions business at Mercury. "TI and Mercury worked closely together to specify a turnkey base band solution on an AMC that will focus on solving customers' problems using the best technology available."
The MTI-203 DSP/FPGA AMC expands the capabilities of the Mercury Ensemble2(TM) family of blades and AMC modules to support highly integrated DSP/FPGA applications. The Ensemble2 AdvancedTCA(R) platform is specifically designed around the performance, scalability, and reliability of the serial RapidIO(R) embedded system interconnect for data plane applications. Leveraging Mercury's renowned expertise in architecting and building efficient, scalable platforms for highly demanding applications in embedded computing, Ensemble2 is expected to deliver unprecedented levels of integration and scalability across a broad class of heterogeneous processing architectures that includes digital signal processors, communications processors, FPGAs, and network processors.
Ensemble2 is ideally suited to support WiMAX development activities:
* Multiple heterogeneous AMCs to customize application -- option to plug
in host processor, radio cards, Network Interface Card (NIC) AMC
* Scalability through a combination of AMCs and Carrier Cards -- the use
of RapidIO for chip-to-chip and across-the-chassis connectivity allows
seamless scaling from a single sector system to multi-sector, multi-
antenna, multi-carrier WiMAX base station implementation
* Flexibility to easily expand specific processing nodes to address
application performance bottlenecks; additional FPGA or DSP modules
over RapidIO support specific application requirements
* Homogeneous interconnect between processing nodes to enable ease of
programming over RapidIO between DSPs, communication processors, and
FPGAs
The Mercury MTI-203 utilizes TI's 1 GHz DSP and optimized WiMAX software library to speed development and time to market for equipment manufacturers developing WiMAX solutions. The TMS320TCI6482 DSP improves cost and power per channel by accelerating PHY processing, and can also be easily upgraded to support future infrastructure needs while protecting manufacturers' and service providers' initial technology investment. The WiMAX-optimized software from TI minimizes product development time, while enabling the manufacturer to add their own customized software. This approach enables reduced implementation risk and quicker time to market, and provides room for competitive differentiation on the end product.
"When combined with TI's highly optimized and robust WiMAX software library, the MTI-203 and the Ensemble2 system provide exceptional flexibility and value for WiMAX base station developers," said Jerold Givens, manager, DSP communications infrastructure group at TI. "We are pleased to work with Mercury to deliver high-performance, flexible solutions that speed development of WiMAX products."
Availability
Early customer access of the Mercury MTI-203 module is planned for September 2006. For more information on the MTI-203 AMC, visit Mercury's website at http://www.mc.com/ensemble2, or contact Mercury at (866) 627-6951 or webinfo@mc.com.
About Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries.
Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at http://www.ti.com.
About Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY) is the leading provider of high-performance embedded, real-time digital signal and image processing computer systems. Mercury's products play a critical role in a wide range of applications, transforming sensor data to information for analysis and interpretation. In military reconnaissance and surveillance platforms the Company's systems process real-time radar, sonar, and signals intelligence data. Mercury's systems are also used in state-of-the-art medical diagnostic imaging devices including MRI, CT, PET, and digital X-ray, and in semiconductor imaging applications including photomask generation and wafer inspection. Mercury provides advanced 3D image processing and visualization software and optimized systems to diverse end markets including life sciences, geosciences, and simulation. The Company also provides radio frequency (RF) products for enhanced communications capabilities in military and commercial applications.
Based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Mercury serves customers in North America, Europe and Asia through its direct sales force and a network of subsidiaries and distributors. Visit Mercury on the web at http://www.mc.com.
Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including those relating to the Mercury MTI-203 AMC or work in collaboration with Texas Instruments. You can identify these statements by our use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. These forward- looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, including unforeseen weakness in Mercury's markets, effects of continued geo-political unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology, and methods of marketing, delays in completing engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, continued funding of defense programs, the timing of such funding, changes in the U.S. Government's interpretation of federal procurement rules and regulations, market acceptance of Mercury's products, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, and inability to fully realize the expected benefits from acquisitions or delays in realizing such benefits, challenges in integrating acquired businesses, and achieving anticipated synergies, and difficulties in retaining key customers. These risks and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are discussed in Mercury's recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2005. Mercury cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Mercury undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made.
Contacts:
Kathy Donahue, Public Relations Manager
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
978-967-1126 / kdonahue@mc.com
Marcia Barnett, Voice Communications
Texas Instruments
214-480-2050 / mpickett@ti.com
Ensemble2 is a trademark of Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. RapidIO is a registered trademark of the RapidIO Trade Association. Other product and company names mentioned may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
Source: prnewswire
All trademarks and copyrighted information contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
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