Lattice Relaunches MachXO5-NX and ORAN

Lattice Semiconductor, a leading global supplier of low-power programmable devices, recently announced the launch of the MachXO5™-NX family of products and a collection of ORAN solutions.

Industry Leading Safety Performance

The MachXO5™-NX product family further strengthens Lattice's long-standing leadership in control FPGAs designed to enhance system monitoring and control in the server computing, communications, industrial and automotive markets by delivering industry-leading low power consumption and reliability.

The MachXO5™-NX FPGA is the fifth device based on Lattice's Nexus™ platform, enabling the latest generation of secure control functionality through increased logic and memory resources, support for stable 3.3 V I/O, and a differentiated set of security features.One application of the MachXO5™-NX FPGA for servers is DC-SCM, the The Datacenter-ready Secure Control Module is a subproject of the OCP Hardware Management Project. It provides guidelines for moving common server management, security, and control functions from the motherboard to a standard-sized module (CFM). Lattice provides LTPI IP to fully support interfaces and protocols that conform to the DC-SCM 2.0 protocol specification for server management functions. Nearly all servers today use Lattice FPGA devices to implement functions that control PLDs, such as power/reset timing, various types of serial buses (I2C, SPI, eSPI, SGPIO, etc.), debug ports, LED drivers, FAN PWM drivers, front-panel switch sensing, and other general-purpose GPIO functions. At the same time, Lattice's PFR solutions have many of the features that customers and developers have come to expect, thus providing the safety features required for DC-SCM. As a result, all of the key features of DC-SCM 2.0 can be realized in a single FPGA from Lattice Semiconductor.

According to Zhenfan Xie, Director of Application Engineering, Asia Pacific, Lattice Semiconductor, Lattice FPGAs are extremely reliable and lead the industry in FPGA-based low-power applications, utilizing the FD-SOI process, which is 100 times more resistant to Soft Error Rates (SERs) than CMOS technology. This is due to the inherent advantages of the FD-SOI process, which also has the advantage of extremely low leakage current, giving Lattice FPGAs a strong advantage in low power consumption.

Accelerating Customer 5G Deployments

The Lattice ORAN solution set enables secure, flexible Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) deployments with stable control data security, flexible forward synchronization and low-power hardware acceleration. The introduction of this solution expands Lattice's comprehensive portfolio of application-oriented, low-power FPGA-based solutions.

The solution set enables ORAN deployments by providing robust security (encryption, authentication, trusted root), flexible forward synchronization (ORAN function deaggregation, IEEE 1588. eCPRI, TSN) and low-power hardware acceleration for functions such as MACsec/IPsec, 5G-ORAN small cells and more. These are essential as wireless networks shift to a new paradigm of software-defined networking (SDN) and deaggregation.

Its first release focuses on addressing the increasing security threats posed by SDN and large-scale deaggregation. In this environment, it is critical to secure all aspects of the platform design to prevent network failures and leakage of proprietary sensitive data. The Lattice ORAN solution collection provides encryption and authentication capabilities over the PCIe interface, providing a secure channel for all commands and messages passing through the interface. In addition, it provides protection for out-of-band communications over PCIe, SMBus and I2C.

In addition, the Lattice ORAN solution combines a hardware platform, secure IP modules, easy-to-use FPGA and Lattice Propel? and Lattice Radiant? software design tools, reference designs and demos, as well as customized design services as required.

With this off-the-shelf solution, 5G customers who are considering deploying an ORAN solution can quickly implement reference code, customize their application with easy-to-use Radiant and Propel tools, and then implement it on Lattice's low-power and secure FPGAs and test it on a development board. This one-stop-shop collection of solutions accelerates time-to-market for 5G ORAN solutions.

Lattice also continues to pay close attention to the growing security needs of 5G networks and ORANs. Lattice will continue to expand its security capabilities by introducing more features into its ORAN solution set, and will continue to focus on providing solutions to enable security features such as authentication, integrity and confidentiality,” said Kok-Song Lin, director of market development, Asia Pacific, Lattice Semiconductor. Lattice's current offerings enable zero-trust security mechanisms and protect channels for data protection. Lattice is working to add features such as identity management and hierarchical key management to ORAN solutions. In addition to these robust security features, Lattice takes a comprehensive approach to network protection recovery and intelligent security control solutions. future iterations of the ORAN solution set will continue to include these advanced security control features and services.

Facing the Challenges Head-On to Facilitate Remote Interaction

The broader context of the New Crown epidemic has resulted in higher demand for bandwidth and coverage to enable remote interactions, which has accelerated 5G penetration, and growing interest in ORAN deployments. Lattice continues to innovate in both FPGA and solution aggregation, bringing easy-to-use, low-power, low-latency, secure and reliable solutions to enable 5G and ORAN capabilities.

Our technology, long-term partnerships and top-notch technical support allow our 5G customers to quickly and easily utilize their innovative capabilities to create a smart, secure and connected world,” re-emphasized Lin. Lattice is well-positioned to support 5G builds with its robust FPGA portfolio and collection of well-architected and easy-to-use, application-specific solutions to support the rapid growth of new and existing players in this evolving ecosystem.”