Mentor recently announced it has joined the O-RAN Alliance, a group compiled of industry leaders committed to openness, intelligence, flexibility and performance in the evolution of 5G radio access network (RAN) architectures and orchestration.

The company joined the Alliance to address the issue of interoperability among vendors when deploying 5G wireless networks and full operation. Its focus in the group is verification and validation requirements for open standards-based network developments.

“While there are many challenges to building the products that comprise 5G networks, testing is the key to success,” said executive vice president for Mentor’s IC Segment Joe Sawicki, in a press release. “Mentor’s comprehensive silicon verification flow is ideally suited to help O-RAN and its members meet their goal of dramatically streamlining interoperability validation cycles for 5G deployments around the globe.”

One technology being used to support the efforts is Mentor’s X-STEP post-silicon validation platform for mixed vendor, system level-testing of 5G components, including SoCs, baseband boards and antenna systems.

Per the release, 5G network designers can conduct

• Pre-silicon SoC protocol compliance verification,
• Development-phase test case sharing between partner companies for early verification in the development phase, and
• Lab-grade verification with bit-accurate analysis of data for timing specifications and antenna configuration testing.

For more information, visit https://www.mentor.com/products/fv/.