Xilinx announced the release of the T1 Telco Accelerator card for O-RAN distributed units (O-DUs) and virtual baseband units (vBBUs) in 5G networks. The card, which is already using Xilinx silicon and IP, which is already deployed in 5G networks, is the only multi-function PCIe form factor card which performs both O-RAN fronthaul protocols and layer 1 offload, per the company.

The T1 accelerator is a small form factor, single-slot card that can be plugged into standard x86 or non-x86 servers to achieve the real-time protocol processing performance required for 5G virtualized O-DU platforms.

It offloads line-rate and compute-intensive functions such as channel encoding/decoding using hardened LDPC and Turbo codecs, rate matching/de-matching, and HARQ buffer management.

Per a company release, the offloading of critical channel coding functions from the CPU to the Xilinx T1 enables up to 45x encoding and 23x decoding throughput improvement, relative to the same server without acceleration, use of fewer CPU cores, and drives down system cost and overall power consumption.

Due to its offload capabilities, it reduces the number of CPU cores required within a system. Further, it allows O-DU to deliver enhanced 5G performance and service while reducing system power consumption.

The card simplifies 5G deployments, offering a turnkey solution with support from ecosystem partners that include O-RAN fronthaul and 5G NR layer 1 reference designs, in addition to pre-validated software.

As far as O-RAN fronthaul termination goes, it has the ability to process multiples sectors of 5G NR 4TRX at 100 MHz OBW with its 50 Gbps of optical ports. 

For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.