AccelerComm announces 5G IP with O-RAN AAL Interface

AccelerComm, which uses physical layer IP to increase spectral efficiency and reduce latency, has successfully demonstrated a fully compliant O-RAN AAL (Acceleration Abstraction Layer) Forward Error Correction (FEC) product for the Xilinx Telco Accelerator cards.

This carrier-grade product enables AccelerComm’s high performance 5G NR LDPC encoding and decoding IP solutions to be rapidly and efficiently used as hardware accelerators in industry standard servers across a PCIe bus using the O-RAN AAL interface.

AccelerComm joined the O-RAN Alliance at the end of 2020 and has been an active participant in the technical development of the organisation’s physical layer standards.

Following the work in O-RAN Working Group 6 to finalise a standard which defines the hardware accelerator interface functions and protocols, known as the AAL interface, AccelerComm has now successfully demonstrated compliance to this standard.

Using a Xilinx Telco card incorporating the company’s 5G physical layer IP and drivers, it was able to demonstrate Block Error Rate (BLER) and throughput tests of its high performance LDPC IP, as well as basic compliance with interface test vectors.

“Central to the success of O-RAN 5G networks is operators being able to minimise their operational costs and maximise the flexibility of their RAN deployments,” said Eric Dowek, Segment Marketing Director at AccelerComm. “This interface enables MNOs with AAL-compliant DUs to use accelerator cards from different vendors which, as well as easing their operational costs, means that operators can select the accelerator card that performs best in a particular use case scenario, thereby helping them to get the best return on investment out of their network.”

AccelerComm’s portfolio of advanced channel coding solutions contain unique cutting-edge technology to maximize spectral efficiency and reduce latency enabling high-performance Open RAN 5G communications systems delivering services that require ultra-reliable, low latency communications, such as VR/AR, industrial IoT, autonomous vehicles and drone control.