Japanese firm Sharp Semiconductor has developed a system-on-chip (SoC) for beyond 5G (6G) IoT terminals based on Ceva’s PentaG2 scalable 5G modem platform IP.

Maryland-based Ceva is a licensor of silicon and software IP that enables smart edge devices to connect, sense and infer data more reliably and efficiently.

Sharp’s Asuka SoC was showcased this week on a demo board at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The SoC was developed to fill a gap in the market for specialised 5G IoT communication chips. To democratise cellular IoT, the SoC offers a customisable alternative to traditional black-box 5G SoCs. Leveraging a software-defined radio (SDR) architecture enabled by the PentaG platform, this chip ensures future-proof flexibility, allowing for customised communication functions and seamless support for emerging 6G standards.

“Our goal with the Asuka SoC is to make 5G and beyond cellular IoT communications more accessible and widespread,” said Sharp’s Toyofumi Horikawa. “By partnering with Ceva and leveraging their renowned expertise in cellular processing, we have realised a cutting-edge SoC that is customisable to address any cellular IoT terminal application or standard, today and in the future.”

Michael Boukaya, chief operation officer of Ceva, added: “We are proud to collaborate with Sharp on their innovative beyond 5G IoT terminal project. Our PentaG2 provides customers like Sharp with the industry’s most advanced 5G platform IP, reducing risk and time to market for the development of cutting-edge cellular modems that support the most advanced applications with industry-leading efficiency and performance.”

Asuka is a software-defined SoC, for IoT user equipment (UE) to promote the spread of IoT UE in the beyond 5G era. A scalable architecture allows for functional modifications, enabling it to keep pace with the continuous evolution of communication standards. It includes various expansion interfaces such as PCIe (Gen4), JESD204B and USB 3.0, allowing users to customise functions via PC connections.

For developers, the Asuka board provides a customisable development environment that enables coordination between basestations and terminals. Users can customise the UE alongside basestations, allowing for simultaneous customisation of both. This facilitates the construction of IoT products, implementation of new features, and verification in an SDR development environment.

The PentaG2 IP (www.ceva-ip.com/product/ceva-pentag2) platform is for implementing 5G modems, designed for lower-throughput applications such as RedCap, and other optimised cellular IoT applications. It consumes little power, making it suitable for IoT and other battery-powered devices. The platform integrates DSPs and accelerators to speed signal chain processing and includes a complete 5G phy software implementation. With its scalable and flexible architecture, the IP supports applications from high-performance mobile broadband to low-power IoT devices.

Ceva (www.ceva-ip.com) has its headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. Sharp Semiconductor (ssic.jp.sharp) is based in Tenri, Japan.