WiMAX™ 802.16-2004 Reference Design Software Platform

Complete software reference designs are available for various purposes. The process toward certification by the WiMAX Forum™ is underway for the full-system version. This reference design includes all the software required for a cost-effective system solution.Visit this page for details of WiMAX hardware reference platforms.

Major features of the Fujitsu 802.16 software platform include the following:

• Compliance with the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard specification
• MAC security sub-layer for subscriber station authentication and data encryption
• Multiple service class support to differentiate service quality
• Dynamic service management to activate service class when needed
• MAC portability to different RTOSes

The typical 802.16 software platform available from Fujitsu contains the following components:

• Host software (which runs on either the on-chip ARM9 or external processor) with the following sub-components:
  
  • Board support packages (BSPs) for popular operating systems
  • RTOS wrapper
  • Device drivers, such as Ethernet, I2C, SPI, and UART
  • BS or SS management and application
  • 802.16 upper layer MAC for SS
  • 802.16 PHY service access point and lower layer MAC (PSAP/LMAC) firmware (which runs on the on-chip ARC processor)

As shown in the overview of Fujitsu’s software platform, the 802.16 upper layer MAC for SS accesses the OFDM PHY through PSAP/LMAC firmware running on the onchip ARCtangent core. In addition to providing PHY access primitives, the PSAP/LMAC firmware includes some 802.16 lower layer MAC functionality to offload tasks from the upper layer MAC for SS. This functionality includes encryption/decryption engines and a CRC checker/inserter.

Fujitsu provides the BSP and device drivers for the supported operating systems, as well as the RTOS wrapper, thus simplifying the porting of the complete software suite to any operating system supported by Fujitsu. Fujitsu’s 802.16 upper layer MAC for SS can also be replaced with a third-party component. Fujitsu provides the full API and interface specifications to enable third parties to develop upper layer MAC for SS components.

Fujitsu also provides the PSAP/LMAC firmware for BS and SS applications. The upper layer MAC for SS, coupled with the PSAP/LMAC firmware, make up the complete 802.16 protocol stack.