Escape Communications Inc., a developer of signal processing solutions for wireless communication products and systems, announced completion of a Gigabit Ethernet modem for millimeter-wave wireless transmission systems. This reconfigurable single chip modem is the world's first all-digital modem specifically designed for compatibility with the European 250 MHz channel allocations for the 60, 70 and 80 GHz mm-wave V- and E-bands. The Gigabit Ethernet modem features a vector-based signal processing architecture originally developed by Escape in support of the very high-volume market of wireless fiber-to-the-home. Earlier this year, Escape announced another derivative of this technology: the Multi-rate Multi-mode Demodulator, which operates over variable rates of 1 Mbps to 4 Gbps and modulation types of QPSK, MSK, 8-PSK, 16-APSK and 32-APSK (APSK per DVB-S2).
Visant Strategies recently reported that applications in the mobile backhaul and consumer electronics markets will drive the creation of a mm-wave market with revenues in excess of $1.5 B by 2014. According to the 2009 Visant report, the most promising mm-wave segment is 71 to 86 GHz E-band backhaul for rapidly expanding LTE, WiMAX and HSPA+ wireless networks. Nearly 50 times the number of 60 GHz V-band and 70/80 GHz E-band point-to-point radios are predicted to be shipped in 2014 compared to 2008.
The Escape Gigabit Ethernet all-digital modem module supports full duplex operation in the 250 MHz mm-wave channels defined by European CEPT rules. The all-digital design accommodates configurable high-order modulation types, arbitrary symbol rates and configurable forward error-correction schemes. It includes advanced carrier tracking to compensate for low-cost mm-wave sources with poor phase noise. The modem is implemented in a single FPGA and supports field upgradeability.
"We are extremely proud to announce the completion of our all-digital modem for the emerging mm-wave marketplace," said co-founder and CEO, Michael Stewart. "We have focused early on compliance with the CEPT-defined 250 MHz channels and have succeeded in developing a reconfigurable modem module that is available now, but can be readily scaled to support higher data rates and more comprehensive feature sets as the market emerges and grows."
