Altera Corp. is planting its flag in the DOCSIS 3.1 soil with a DOCSIS Remote PHY design that it will show off at next week’s Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans.
Altera (booth #3135) said the platform on show will be powered by its Arria 10 FPGAs and Analog Device’s digital-to-analog converters and analog-to-digital converters, and matched with Capacicom’s MAC and PHY systems.
Altera said its distributed form of the Converged Cable Access Platform, which combines the functions of the edge QAM and cable modem termination system, will support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging next-gen IP platform for hybrid fiber/coax networks that’s designed to deliver up to 10 Gbps downstream and at least 1 Gbps in the upstream direction.
Altera said its approach with programmable silicon will allow for the dynamic segmentation of CCAP as either embedded in the node as an integrated headend or, with x86+FPGA as virtualized modules in a datacenter.
"The pent-up demand for new CCAP- capable equipment is evident in the early volume deployments of CCAP gear, and we expect the upward trend in combined CMTS and CCAP channel shipments to continue as operators prepare their networks for DOCSIS 3.1 and remote PHY (physical layer) architectures," Jeff Heynen, IHS Research principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV, said in a statement.
"Our ongoing technology roadmap will enable us to deliver further, and more dramatic power savings in the node, which for the first time, makes full-spectrum, full unicast 4x4 port densities per node viable; dramatically reducing both the MSO's Capex and Opex cost per RF port,” added Umar Mughal, Altera director of the broadcast and cable business unit.
