This article was originally published on May 25, 2019.
Editor’s Note: This content is contributed by David Brubaker, Sr. Product Line Manager, Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC.
5G – the Promise and the Challenge
5G is effectively reshaping wireless infrastructure and will provide a seamless solution for mobile and fixed communications, streaming video services, security monitoring, smart appliances, and even autonomous vehicles. This transformation, already underway, will change our daily lives. Today, Xilinx is at the forefront of 5G, offering a unique solution to engineers for exploration and validation of 5G systems. The Zynq® UltraScale+™ RFSoC has a proven track record as an ideal component in both 5G and other wireless systems, and Xilinx offers the ZCU111 Evaluation board to facilitate rapid prototyping and development.
Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC – Designed to Make Your Life Easier
Xilinx introduced the Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC to provide a disruptive integration of RF-sampling data converters with FPGA programmable logic, a complete Arm® processing subsystem, as well as high-speed transceivers, and soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) cores on a monolithic die. The integrated SD-FEC blocks deliver high throughput, low-density parity check (LDPC), and Turbo solutions for a wide range of communication applications with up to 80% power reduction over a soft implementation. With full programmability for both analog and digital signal domains, the Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC is ideal for several markets including massive-MIMO radio, 5G baseband, Remote PHY cable access, test and measurement, and phased-array radars. Xilinx offers a comprehensive development platform to let system designers evaluate and quickly development the entire RF signal chain.
Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC Development Kit with Qorvo RF Front End
Avnet, in collaboration with Xilinx, Qorvo, and Mathworks, has launched the Avnet RFSoC Development Kit. The kit enables RF system architects to validate the entire 5G signal, from digital to analog to antenna, and back again by adding a Qorvo 2x2 RF front-end daughtercard to the ZCU111 evaluation kit. It offers a system-level solution, and includes the following:
- Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC ZCU111 Evaluation Kit
- Qorvo 2x2 Small Cell RF Front-end 1.8GHz Card
- Avnet RFSoC Explorer® for signal capture & analysis
- Free MATLAB® trial package for wireless communications
The RFSoC Explorer® is built natively on MATLAB, and with access to the MATLAB 5G toolbox, allows algorithm exploration with “radio in the loop” co-simulation and direct RF-sampling. The RFSoC Explore provides engineers with unmatched power to evaluate and develop both 5G and wireless systems.
If you are designing RF systems for 5G, get started with this fully featured development platform today!
To learn more about the groundbreaking Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC, visit here.
For more information on the Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC Development Kit with Qorvo RF Front End, visit here.
