Aimed at private networks, the SC-RF4-5Gn78 Indoor 5G Small Cell Standalone gNodeB Reference Platform from CommAgility supports four 100 MHz channels with 4×4 MIMO.

Indoor small cells form the basis of 5G private networks, adding the ability for IoT devices and machines to connect to a network over a 5G wireless link. Portions of the 5G band n78 (3.3 GHz to 3.8 GHz) have been allocated for such use in many countries, including the CBRS band (3.5 GHz to 3.7 GHz) in the U.S. Commagility’s SC-RF4-5Gn78 small-cell reference platform lets you develop small cells from the radio to baseband protocol Layer 3.

Combined with CommAgility’s SmallCellPHY-5G software, the board’stwo NXP Layerscape Access SoCs provide the RF signal chain. An NXP LX2160A combines 16 Arm Cortex-A72 cores with Commagility’s SmallCelSTACK 3GPP Release 15 software to support 5G Layer 2-3 processing with Ethernet connectivity to the core network.

You can obtain licensing for tailoring PHY and protocol layers to specific needs, or CommAgility can make those modifications for you. CommAgility can also customize its 5G software to the specific needs of each project. Such customizing lets you adapt the platform for customer-selected 3GPP Release 16 and 17 features.

The platform’s 5G NR provides up to four 100 MHz channels within the n78 band. The board also supports 4×4 MIMO with average RF power of +18 dBm on each RF channel. The board provides RF filtering, network synchronization and timing from GPS or IEEE 1588 Network Time Protocol.

Cellular base stations need connectivity to a core network. The SC-RF4-5Gn78 contains two SFP+ 10GBase-SR/LR optical module cages and one RJ-45 Ethernet port. It also includes a GPS antenna SMB post, four SMA antenna ports, and SDHC card slot for memory, and a mini-USB-B UART port for development work.