At the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019
conference which started this week, Intel has announced the Intel FPGA
Programmable Acceleration Card N3000 or Intel FPGA PAC N3000. Designed
specifically for service providers to enable 5G next-generation core and
virtualised radio access network solutions.
Intel FPGA PAC N3000 is a fully capable end-to-end
solution that can be deployed at the 5G edge and network. It is already making
an impact:
- 5G core solution: Affirmed Networks offers virtualized cloud-native mobile network solutions for 5G. By working with Intel’s FPGA PAC, it developed a new solution for 5G core network (CN)/evolved packet core – the first true 200 Gbps/server. Intel FPGAs for smart load balancing and CPU cache optimizations enhance software performance. They also provide lower power consumption and lower latency for diverse quality of service characteristics across multiple network slices for 5G. Affirmed Networks 5G Core Network will be demonstrated in the Intel booth at MWC.
- Edge: Rakuten, a leading global innovation company in e-commerce, communications and financial technology, and soon to be the operator of Japan’s newest and most innovative mobile network, is including Intel x86 and FPGA-based PAC for acceleration from the core to the edge to provide the first end-to-end cloud-native mobile network. Intel FPGA PAC N3000 is the distributed unit accelerator next to Intel Xeon Scalable processor where Layer 1 functions, such as forward error correction and front haul transmission, are offloaded onto an Intel FPGA. The Intel FPGA accelerates processing efficiency to improve and support user capacity, as well as reduce system cost and provide more security in the radio network.
