Qualcomm introduces new PCIe accelerator cards to help build virtualized RAN

     Qualcomm Technologies has announced enhancements to its 5G RAN platform portfolio with the launch today of the 5G DU X100 accelerator card, which is built in a way that enables infrastructure providers and operators to take advantage of energy-efficient 5G, low latency and high performance, while facilitating the adaptation of the cellular ecosystem to a virtualized Radio Access Network (RAN).

     The tool, a PCIe inline accelerator card with synchronous Sub-6 GHz and mmWave baseband assist, was built to simplify 5G deployments, providing a pre-integrated solution that makes the deployment of 5G NR first layer (L1) and O-RAN leading-edge processing easier. The PCIe card is built in such a way that it can connect to off-the-shelf commercial (COTS) servers to replace compute-intensive and delacy-sensitive 5G baseband functions that would otherwise require cpus, such as the massive MIMO computations required for high-capacity, channel coding, beamforming, and demodulation deployments.

     This online accelerator card also enables infrastructure vendors to quickly commercialize virtualized infrastructure. It enhances virtualized network operator deployments by reducing power consumption, reducing the number of cores and cpus required, and improving performance. Qualcomm Technologies is also working with operators around the world to enhance the adoption of virtualized RAN.