Executive Summary
This report surveys the emerging Software Defined Radio (SDR) market. The report details the economic and engineering rationales for the adoption of SDR technologies, analyzes vendor strategies for addressing the changes introduced by SDR, and surveys the regulatory environment in which SDR devices must operate.
The report begins with a survey of SDR technologies. The report analyzes, in turn, each of the key components in SDRÑDigital-to-Analog and Analog-to-Digital Converters (DACs and ADCs,) Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs,) Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs,) Digital Signal Processors (DSPs,) General Purpose Processors (GPPs,) software, and emerging technologies such as RF Microelectromechanical Systems (RF MEMS.) The report describes the economics of each of these classes of components in a wireless industry transformed by the adoption of SDR.
Many international research and development projects have focused on SDR. The study includes a summary of several high-profile SDR research projects in North America and Europe, including lists of commercial, academic and government participants.
The core of the report is an analysis of vendor strategies for SDR. The section on vendor strategies looks at relevant segments of the radio hardware industry, as well as the wireless services market, to see how SDR will affect each industry segment. In a series of scenarios for the development of the SDR market, the report uses the concept of the industry profit pool to discuss how some segments of the wireless device industry stand to benefit from SDR technologies, while others may see their margins and market share shrink. ADC and DAC manufacturers, programmable logic and processor vendors, and RF MEMS fabricators, in particular, are most likely to gain market share and margins with the adoption of SDR. Discrete component manufacturers are likely to see shrinking market share.
In the US and the European Union, recent regulatory innovations have opened the door to SDR devices. Nevertheless, further reform, especially in the area of spectrum policy, will be necessary before the maximum benefits from SDR can be realized.
One of benefits for consumers: SDR-based Personal Area Network
The Personal Area Network (PAN) is based on the trends towards increasing connectivity of personal information and communications devices. The proliferation of wireless devicesÑcell phones, pagers, wireless PDAs, and so forthÑis forcing many consumers to carry multiple, self-contained radio devices on their body. Each device has its own receiver and transmitter, its own signal processing circuitry, and each requires a battery large enough to operate a wide area network transceiver.
If, however, individuals were to adopt an SDR-based PAN architecture, they would enjoy greater connectivity among their various information and communications devices. Also, those information and communications devices could be produced in smaller, lighter, more convenient form-factors. The multiple wide-area radio communications functions
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary:
1. Introducing Software Defined Radio
1.1. Why SDR?
1.1.1. Interoperability: Military and emergency radio services
1.1.2. Agility: Ad hoc wireless networking and wireless grids
1.1.3. Ending standards wars: Cellular telephone services
1.1.4. The "intelligent transceiver" and service markets
1.1.5. The SDR communications stack
1.2. Advantages of SDR technology
1.3. Challenges of SDR technology
1.4. The path to SDR
1.4.1. Early achievements in SDR
1.4.2. Competing technologies
1.5. SDR as a disruptive technology?
1.6. Overview of the report
2. From Conventional Architectures to Software Defined Radio
2.1. Conventional radio design
2.1.1. Receiver design
2.1.2. Signal mixing
2.1.3. Receiver characteristics
2.1.4. Receiver system architectures
2.1.4.1. The direct conversion receiver
2.1.4.2. The heterodyne and super-heterodyne receivers
2.1.5. Transmitter and transceiver designs
2.2. SDR radio designs
2.2.1. A taxonomy of SDR architectures
2.2.2. SDR transceiver architectures
2.2.3. Flexibility and SDR architectures
2.3. Computational and power budgets
2.4. New networking architectures made possible by SDR
2.4.1. The Personal Area Network & SDR
2.4.2. Wireless grid computing and SDR
2.5. Summary
3. SDR technology survey
3.1. Digital technologies for SDR
3.1.1. Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analog converters (ADCs & DACs)
3.1.2. Digital signal processors (DSPs)
3.1.3. Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) & Application
Specific Standard Products(ASSPs)
3.1.4. Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs): Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)
3.1.5. System-on-a-chip, Hybrid FPGA & specialized core designs
3.1.6. Hardware description languages (HDLs) & Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools
3.1.7. General purpose processor (GPP) hardware
3.2. RF Micro-electro-mechanical systems (RF-MEMS)
3.2.1. RF-MEMS tuned circuit components
3.2.2. RF-MEMS in smart & broadband antenna systems
3.3. Software development challenges for SDR
3.4. Summary: SDR technologies vs. conventional technologies
3.4.1. Currently practical SDR applications
4. Government and industry programs promoting SDR technologies
4.1. US Military programs
4.1.1. JARECO
4.1.2. ICNIA
4.1.3. TAJPSP
4.1.4. GloMo
4.1.5. SPEAKeasy Phase I
4.1.6. SPEAKeasy Phase II
4.1.7. FM3TR-The Future Multiband Multiwaveform Modular Tactical Radio
4.1.8. ATLANTIC PAWS
4.1.9. JTRS-The Joint Tactical Radio System
4.1.9.1. Companies participating in JTRS SCA and waveform development stages
4.1.9.2. Companies participating in JTRS Cluster 1:
4.1.9.3. Clusters 2 through 5
4.2. European Union programs
4.3. Industry organizations: The MMITS Forum/The Software Defined Radio Forum
4.4. Conclusion: Government funding and SDR
5. Key Vendor strategies for SDR
5.1. Profiles of SDR market segments
5.1.1. Data conversion: ADC & DAC vendors
5.1.2. Signal processing: ASICs, FPGAs, DSPs, GPPs
5.1.3. Semiconductor IP vendors and SDR
5.1.4. DSP vendors and SDR
5.1.5. SDR sub-system vendors
5.1.6. Consumer & industrial radio system OEMs & SDR
5.1.7. Wireless carriers & SDR
5.1.8. RF MEMS
5.1.9. Electronic Design Automation (EDA) vendors
5.1.10. SDR Software vendors
5.2. Vendor profiles
5.2.1. ADC Telecommunications
5.2.2. Vanu, Inc.
The Vanu Software Basestation
Vanu Software Radio Test & Monitoring System
5.2.3. Intel Corporation-"Radio Free Intel"
5.2.3.1. CMOS SDR building blocks: economies of scope
5.2.3.2. Intel's broader investments in SDR
5.2.3.3. Intel Communications Alliance
5.2.3.4. Networking software & protocols
5.2.4. Altera
5.2.5. GNU Radio
5.3. Value Chains, Value Webs & Profit Pools in the SDR market
5.3.1. The profit pool concept
5.4. Market scenarios
5.4.1. SCENARIO: EARLY STAGES OF THE SDR MARKET
5.4.2. SCENARIO: OPTIMISTIC SDR DEVELOPMENT IN THE MEDIUM RUN
5.4.3. SCENARIO: RESTRICTIVE REGULATION OF SDR TECHNOLOGIES
5.4.4. SCENARIO: PERMISSIVE REGULATION OF SDR TECHNOLOGIES
5.4.5. Timing of SDR adoption by market
5.4.6. The bottom line and SDR
6. Regulatory support for SDR
6.1. FCC investigations of SDR technology
6.1.1. FCC's new process for authorizing radio devices
6.1.2. Third party changes
6.1.3. Preventing unauthorized software modifications
6.2. US Government spectrum policy reform
6.2.1. Secondary Spectrum Markets
6.2.2. Overlay
6.3. Global SDR regulation
6.4. Conclusion: regulation of SDR technologies
7. Conclusion
7.1. SDR market highlights
7.2. SDR Strategies
7.3. Long-term prospects: consumer perspectives
7.3.1. SDR, air interface standards, and time-to-market
7.3.2. Cognitive radio
7.3.3. Services-trans-system roaming
7.3.4. Personal Area Networking
Appendix A. The Software Defined Radio Forum
Appendix B: Company Information for selected firms in Software Defined Radio
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