On the Design of a Suitable Hardware Platform for Protocol Stack Processing in LTE Terminals

—In this paper we present a design methodology for the identification and development of a suitable hardware platform (including dedicated hardware accelerators) for the data plane processing of the LTE protocol stack layer 2 (L2) in downlink direction. For this purpose, a hybrid design approach is adopted allowing first investigations of future mobile phone platforms on the system level (using virtual prototyping) combined with more accurate power-area explorations of hardware accelerators on the architectural level. Additionally, we show the employment of an LTE data generator peripheral, realizing L2 uplink processing and thus enabling platform analyses in a closed virtual environment. Furthermore, a modeling technique for a fast and efficient design of virtual hardware accelerator peripherals is demonstrated. A reasonable hardware/software partitioning can thereby be achieved early in the design phase. Once the system architecture is settled and thus the solution space is redu...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: CSE
• Authors: Sebastian Hessel, David Szczesny, Shadi Traboulsi, Attila Bilgic, Josef Hausner
• Keywords: Computer Science And Engineering, CSE 2009, Hardware Accelerator, LTE Protocol Stack, Suitable Hardware