Bath / Nuremberg 23 June 2010. picoChip, the leading supplier of semiconductors and software for femtocells, and Nash Technologies, a key European R&D service provider, announced a partnership today for testing picoXcell femtocell SoCs with Nash Technologies’ revolutionary NPT and DAIM toolsets.

Femtocell products are becoming increasingly sophisticated, leading to a dramatic rise in test complexity. This collaboration allows Nash Technologies and picoChip to optimize the test coverage of new products and releases, to maintain metrics of the highest quality while reducing time-to-market.

“picoChip is investing heavily to meet the fast-moving needs of the femtocell market,“ said Nigel Toon, CEO of picoChip. “Customers are demanding more features, reliably delivered at aggressive cost points. Working with Nash Technologies helps us to meet these challenges head-on.“

“We are very proud to establish a partnership with such prominent player in the femtocell arena and we look forward to supporting picoChip with our more than 7 years experience in femtocell development and testing,“ said Udo Nadolski, Managing Director of Nash Technologies.

picoChip’s use of the NPT and DAIM toolsets delivers tangible benefits to both equipment manufacturers and network operators. The ability to test femtocell products with real handsets significantly reduces risk and cuts project timescales for customers integrating picoChip’s physical layer solution into end products. The testing strategy also facilitates the derivation of key performance indicators (KPIs) that are meaningful to network operators ““ for example call completion rate.

The Nash Protocol Tester, NPT, is a universal test tool for functional testing on multiple test stages, from host test to target test. The functionality ranges far beyond traditional protocol and stack testing. Test scenarios can be defined by using Perl scripts and executed either interactively or in a fully automated manner. Test scripts can be written so that not only traditional sunny-day/rainy-day scenarios are executed, but also to enable adversarial tests where message sequences or content are deliberately made inconsistent or incorrect. The user may further use NPT to reproduce field scenarios, which is especially helpful in cases where such scenarios occur rarely and/or only under very specific conditions otherwise not reproducible in test labs. The Nash Protocol Tester allows running automated test scenarios with L1 test mobiles, as well as with commercial handsets and data cards, reducing the CAPEX for the test environment. It is also possible to further control test equipment such as signal or fading generators or VSA. Test results and logs can be stored to a test management system for later analysis and automated reporting.

The Debug Air Interface Monitor, DAIM, is a tool that retrieves and visualizes internal measurements of a Femto system to enable troubleshooting low-layer problems during test and operation. The DAIM supports monitoring of live calls and provides a session log. The post-processing mode allows offline analysis of logged sessions. The DAIM features simultaneous monitoring of multiple Femtos, which enables in-depth debugging of handover scenarios.

About picoChip

picoChip is enabling the next generation of wireless infrastructure. Its picoXcell(TM) family of optimized silicon devices is the leader in the fast growing market for femtocell access points. Its picoArray(TM) family of flexible wireless processors is the leading solution for OFDMA-based network equipment, and is backed by comprehensive software support for global standards such as EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX, LTE, cdma2000 and GSM. Located in Bath, UK and Beijing, China, picoChip is reshaping mobile networks.

About Nash Technologies

Nash Technologies, based in Nuremberg and Stuttgart Germany, is a high-tech company in the communication technology sector. The centre of excellence, with in-depth experience acquired in the world-renowned Bell Labs, joined the Harvey Nash Group as an independent spin-off of Alcatel-Lucent’s UMTS and Wireline Networks R&D operation. Nash Technologies’ wide-ranging expertise covers all phases of the product lifecycle, and its testing facilities rank among the largest in the world.
Nash Technologies’ services encompass the development, optimization, support and testing of wireline such as ISDN, IMS or IP based systems and wireless communication systems such as GSM, UMTS and LTE, as well as software development and testing, ranging from .net web applications, through mobile phone applications, to embedded software solutions, such as stack development for femtocells. We offer a unique combination of onsite/offshore research and development services ““ in Europe and Vietnam ““ and are thus ideally positioned to provide our international clients with services of the highest quality at very competitive prices.

Pressekontakt Nash Technologies

Nash Technologies GmbH
Dirk Zetzsche
Thurn-und-Taxis-Str. 10
90411 Nürnberg
Tel: +49 911 / 30874 1111
E-Mail: [email protected]

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