IDT and 5G Lab Germany Tie Up for 5G Tactile Networks Research

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) has recently announced its multi-year cooperation with 5G Lab Germany on research related to 5G tactile networks, which include the application of IDT technology to enable network-connected self-driving vehicles. Through this project, the laboratory’s focus on merging 5G technologies with system-transforming applications will be extended. The core technology of the project is IDT’s low-latency RapidIO interconnects, which is currently used for almost every 4G telephone call made worldwide, as well as for real-time sensor analysis in different aerospace and defense systems, applicable to self-driving vehicles.

The RapidIO technology will be employed to explore two major elements of the network. First is the 100ns latency RapidIO switching and interconnect technology, which will be utilized to help 5G Lab Germany realize its vision of transforming the vehicle into a connected appliance by networking it with a 5G base station’s “edge computing” server. Second, it is intended for RapidIO technology to be assessed to connect a number of vehicle sensors in real time for the mission-critical sensor function network critical for the autonomous or computer-assisted driving experience. A RapidIO-connected heterogenous computer network will run real-time analytics to assist different network devices, including vehicles.

According to Gerhard Fettweis, 5G Lab chair and Vodafone chair professor for Mobile Communications Systems, with Germany’s leadership in the international automotive industry, their focus on the tactile Internet of Things and IDT’s low-latency interconnect and market-leading timing portfolio, the key elements are in place to address the real-time mission-critical challenges of platforms for the tactile Internet, including self-driving vehicles. He added that with the one millisecond round trip constraints in 5G deployments, they need low-latency computing platforms for vehicles, base station and edge computing servers. “This project will explore connecting the requisite high-performance computing nodes through the deployment of IDT RapidIO technology and associated timing products.”

The partnership will build on IDT’s recently announced RXS family of 50 Gbps RapidIO products, as well as computing appliances under development by IDT partners in the Open Compute Project’s (OCP) High-Performance Computing group. The projects of OCP support heterogeneous computing between FPGAs, GPU, Power Architecture, ARM and x86.

In a statement, Sailesh Chittipeddi, IDT’s chief technology officer and vice president of global operations, said that computing is moving where it has to be—close to the end user experience—and it must happen in real time, which implies it would need low-latency interconnect with outstanding systems synchronization. “As the technical needs of connected autonomous vehicles and 5G edge computing servers become more clearly defined, it is becoming increasingly clear that RapidIO technology—with more than 110 million ports shipped to the wireless base station and aviation markets—will keep IDT in the center of development for distributed computing with multi-processor and sensor networks.”

Chittipeddi also mentioned that with the recent purchase of ZMDI, IDT improved its technology portfolio with automotive and sensor platforms, which could play a critical role for self-driving vehicles and related 5G solutions.

Preliminary details of and advances from the joint partnership are slated to be presented at the International Supercomputing Conference on June 19-23 in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Mobile Edge Computing Congress on Sep 21-22 in Munich, Germany.