SDR, meet FPGA! FPGA, meet SDR!

We’ve had a lot of traffic at this blog site in the last couple months regarding the central role FPGAs will play in reconfigurable air interfaces and dedicated frequency bands for “software-defined radio,” or SDR. In fact, watch our video space for upcoming clips on the role of programmable logic in 4G wireless services and SDR.

It appears the admiration is mutual. The SDR Forum’s general meeting in San Jose, Sept. 14-17, will feature a Xilinx-sponsored workshop, “Rapid FPGA Development for Wireless Applications – IP Cores, Tools, and Standards.” As the title  suggests, the panel members will be skewed toward representatives from software, systems, and design-tool companies, including The MathWorks, Mercury Computer Systems, Open Cores Protocol – International Partnership, Objective Interface Systems, PrismTech, and Synopsys.

Now, SDR Forum wants a lot of vertical market-development specialists to play a bigger role for a concept that is still largely defined by mil-aero applications. But given the new interest in soft basestations, we can expect this workshop to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.