Development and Implementation of Wireless Telecommunication Systems a Collection of Relevant Hardware and Software Patents
Modern telecommunication systems and standards are mainly dependent on the availability of digital signal processing capabilities of appropriate hardware components. Two main categories can be distinguished in the development of digital signal processing units. On the one hand a number of general purpose digital signal processors are available on the market, which can be programmed through programming languages like C or C++ or - for higher performance purpose - directly in assembly code. The advantage of such devices is the ability of high flexibility and short time to market since there is no further hardware development, on the integrated circuit level, required. On the other hand hardware components are specifically developed for signal processing tasks, which are mainly application specific integrated circuits (ASIC). They are usually only programmable to a certain degree, always considering the area of application, i.e. wireless telecommunication systems. Although they do not offer the flexibility of general purpose digital signal processors, they offer the big advantage of less required hardware (measured as chip area or die size), lower power consumption and higher speeds. Usually hybrids are found on the market, which combine freely programmable Digital Signal Processor (DSP) with very specific hardware modules to support the specific application needs. This thesis describes the development of a Wireless Telecommunication System, describing the relevant development methodologies, regarding aspects of hardware and software split and actual implementations of components in hardware as well as in software. This is done specifically for the example of a wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) wireless mobile system. The actual state of the art is described in detail, according to the relevant literature in the area of WCDMA systems. Programmable hardware is presented, which is covered through a portfolio of patents. The purpose and the application of each patent are described in detail as well as the area of application. Finally a classification of each patent is given, which aims to give an objective measure about the value of a patent. The presented patents show a significant contribution to knowledge enabling the development of low power mobile wireless telecommunication systems.
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