Icera has today announced availability of its Espresso Cellular WWAN PCI express Mini-card platform, which supports the next generation of broadband cellular integration to laptop PCs. The platform fully supports 3GPP Release 5 multimode HSDPA/EDGE which delivers peak data-rates of 3.6Mbps and is fully scalable to 7.2Mbps and HSUPA – without hardware change.
Nigel Toon, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Icera said: “Icera is focussing on the fast emerging cellular data market and is providing the world’s first optimised Cellular WWAN Mini-card reference platform. This platform will enable our customers to fully support the next generation of laptop broadband cellular WWAN requirements. Icera technology is today delivering the highest HSDPA performance in real network deployments with a throughput advantage of up to 2x.”
Toon continued: “We are targeting this reference design at datacard OEM’s to support them in producing embedded Cellular WWAN modules. We have worked closely with cellular carriers, laptop chipset vendors and laptop OEM’s to provide a comprehensive ready for manufacture solution, while the reference design can also be used as the basis for Express Card | 34 and small sized USB Stick Broadband Cellular peripheral devices.”
Built around the Icera Livanto ICE8020 device and the Icera Adaptive Wireless HSDPA/EDGE wireless soft modem solution, the Espresso platform delivers the highest performance in multimode 2G / 3G networks. Espresso supports a full EDGE Class 12 capability and is unique in the industry today in offering full support for 3GPP-defined Type 3 advanced receiver technology which supports an optimised Receive Diversity in combination with dual Equalization for the highest throughput in real network situations.
The Icera solution today supports the higher HSDPA categories, including 7.2Mbps, and is set to be one of the first solutions to offer enhanced uplink data rates with HSUPA. Icera’s advantage is that these are software deliverables and require no hardware changes to implement.
Featuring an optimised bill-of-materials and a complete ready-for-manufacture solution, with full software, firmware and certification support, the Icera Espresso Cellular WWAN Mini-card platform is set to reshape the cost and ease the integration of cellular broadband in laptop devices.