Keysight Technologies' SystemVue 2017 Simulation Platform Effectively Lowers ASTRI's NB-IoT Transceiver Cost, Power Requirements

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·         ASTRI experts identified an issue with an NB-IoT standard parameter that would have driven up NB-IoT transceiver cost and power
·         Keysight’s SystemVue software and NB-IoT library provided proof of parameter issue, enabling ASTRI to officially request a standard change
·         3GPP Release 13 and 14 to contain official parameter change

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS) today announced that its premier simulation platform for system design and verification, SystemVue 2017, significantly contributed to an improvement to the narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) standard. SystemVue enables users to combine existing baseband, RF, and channel models together for evaluation of the entire system. The improvement realized using SystemVue, optimizes the NB-IoT user equipment (UE) standard to facilitate the implementation of low-power NB-IoT terminal chips and will be incorporated in Release 13 (revised version) and 14 of the 3GPP standard.

NB-IoT is an emerging narrowband wireless communication standard developed to enable a wide range of new IoT devices and services. The standard specifies low-cost and low-power implementation for massive deployment and long battery life.

While designing an NB-IoT terminal transceiver, experts from Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) discovered an improper definition in the NB-IoT standard’s receiver wideband intermodulation requirement. The requirement was more stringently specified than that in the LTE standard, which runs counter to the promise of offering low-cost/low-power NB-IoT terminals.

A system-level simulation platform, based on Keysight EEsof EDA’s SystemVue software and NB-IoT library (developed in collaboration with ASTRI), provided the critical evidence needed for ASTRI to successfully request a standard change at the 3GPP RAN4 #82 meeting in Athens, Greece in February. The change was fully accepted by delegates from many different companies.

“As an early and active participant in 3GPP NB-IoT standardization, ASTRI is pioneering development of NB-IoT terminal transceiver IP for the worldwide market,” said Tom Lillig, general manager for Keysight’s Design Engineer Software organization. “SystemVue software has, and continues to play, a critical role in that development by providing ASTRI the capabilities it needs to fully evaluate its’ transceiver IP at the system level. Without such capabilities, issues like the improper NB-IoT standard definition could have easily be overlooked, detrimentally impacting the standard’s use and proliferation.”

“ASTRI benefited greatly from Keysight’s timely and efficient SystemVue simulation platform during our NB-IoT terminal transceiver IP and chip development,” said Dr. Meikei Leong, chief technology officer of ASTRI. “Our collaboration with Keysight not only improved the worldwide NB-IoT standard, but also helped us catch golden opportunities in the NB-IoT terminal market.”

About ASTRI

Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI) was founded by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 2000 with the mission of enhancing Hong Kong’s competitiveness in technology-based industries through applied research. ASTRI’s core R&D competences in various areas are organized under seven Technology Divisions, namely Communications Technologies, Electronics Components, Mixed Signal Systems IC, Advanced Digital Systems, Opto-electronics, Security and Data Sciences, and Intelligent Software and Systems. Five areas of applications including financial technologies, intelligent manufacturing, next generation network, health technologies, and smart city are identified for major pursuit. ASTRI hosts Hong Kong Branch of National Engineering Research Centre for Application Specific Integrated Circuit System (CNERC) since June 2012. CNERC mainly focuses on IC design areas such as NB-IoT, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), visual computing, financial technologies, electrostatic discharge (ESD) and input/output design, the third-generation power semiconductor and packaging. For further information about ASTRI, please visit www.astri.org.