The 5G Open RAN (O-RAN) ecosystem received a boost with news of Mavenir and Xilinx collaborating on a unified 4G/5G O-RAN massive MIMO (mMIMO) portfolio. The two companies have completed end-to-end integration of a first-generation mMIMO solution using O-RAN principles. The first mMIMO 64TRX joint solution is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The integration, which was accomplished at Mavenir’s Bangalore, India lab, covered multiple deployment scenarios and was evaluated by six communications service providers (CSPs), all of which are leading global operators. Mavenir delivered the Virtualized RAN (vRAN) support for mMIMO, including Core Network, CU, and DU, with Xilinx providing the Category B O-RAN Radio Unit.
With the successful integration, the companies have reached a critical milestone in the delivery of an open and interoperable interface, which enables the deployment of mMIMO in high-density, high-mobile-traffic metropolitan areas.
Together, Mavenir and Xilinx say they are developing the next generation of mMIMO products, which add up to the world’s first O-RAN-compliant 64TRX mMIMO solution supporting up to 400 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth in a compact form factor. Mavenir's vRAN software supports multi-user MIMO with up to 16 layers, advanced receiver algorithms, and full digital beamforming, all running on Mavenir's open and flexible cloud-native platform, as well as on other cloud platforms. Xilinx contributes its Zynq RFSoC digital front end (DFE) and Versal AI Core for advanced beamforming, delivering a fully integrated hardware and software O-RAN-compliant mMIMO solution.