Following on the heels of XDF San Jose and Beijing, this week’s XDF Frankfurt, which took place Monday, got off to an eventful start. A German rail workers’ strike happened to coincide with the event so it proved extra challenging for those traveling. But for the attendees who made it, they were treated to a keynote by Xilinx CTO Ivo Bolsens with special on-stage appearances by marquee companies – Germany-based Daimler (see “Daimler joins Xilinx at XDF Frankfurt to Disclose its new AI Interior Technology”) and Sweden-based Ericsson.
Xilinx and Ericsson have been working very closely together over the past couple of years to identify ways ACAP technology can be architected to meet the needs of 5G radio design, and Hannes Medelius, head of systems management, radio, Ericsson, joined Bolsens on stage to share his insight. Medelius’ responsibilities at Ericsson include ensuring that the company has the right architectures and technologies for radios moving into 5G, so he has expert knowledge on the challenges associated with building 5G radios and the critical need for adaptable technology.
Hannes Medelius, head of systems management, radio, Ericsson
There are several challenges that Medelius and his team have come across when developing next-generation radios. These include the need to develop a large number of diverse products across many more frequencies than ever. In fact, Medelius’ team now must release about two radio products per week! But Ericsson must do this while focusing on time to market, lowering the cost and the energy consumed per-unit, making everything smaller, lighter, more integrated and more user friendly by introducing much more intelligence in the radios.
To solve these challenges, Ericsson is looking for solutions to improve flexibility, and that is why they are looking to Xilinx’s Versal platform. Providing more versatility than today’s ASICs, Versal’s vector engines combined with programmable logic specifically, are, very interesting to the company for 5G deployments, said Medelius.
We are incredibly honored that Daimler and Ericsson joined us on stage this week. They join leading companies such as Alibaba, AMD, Inspur, Nokia, and Twitch who have all shared their accomplishments and insights with us on the keynote stage at an XDF event this year.
From San Jose, to Beijing and now to Frankfurt, we have hosted nearly 3,000 developers, customers and partners. We want to thank all of our customers, partners and the entire Xilinx team for an incredible 2018. As we look ahead to 2019, we are very excited for what the future holds from our partners and customers to enable the adaptable and intelligent world.
