1 / 39

Research In Motion UWE Guest Lecture

Research In Motion UWE Guest Lecture. Rob Harrison Director of UMTS Development Mon 13 December, 2010. Introduction To RIM. Who are RIM Career Opportunities Cellular Radio Further Information. Who Are RIM ?. Research In Motion Maker of the BlackBerry

rafi
Download Presentation

Research In Motion UWE Guest Lecture

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Research In MotionUWE Guest Lecture Rob Harrison Director of UMTS Development Mon 13 December, 2010

  2. Introduction To RIM • Who are RIM • Career Opportunities • Cellular Radio • Further Information

  3. Who Are RIM ? • Research In Motion • Maker of the BlackBerry • Biggest technology company in Canada • Fastest growing company in the world (Fortune 100) • Top 5 mobile phone producer • Employs around 16,000 worldwide • 10% of staff in Canada are student interns

  4. What about the UK ? • RIM UK Ltd • Main European HQ in Slough • Employees 600 in all • Mainly sales, marketing and support, and... • Network Operations Centre • IT and BlackBerry Support • User Engagement • BlackBerry Security Team • Testing: Field, SV&V, IOT

  5. Other UK Offices • R&D Labs • Birmingham, near the NIA • 40 staff, including 3 students • Software development on 3G protocol stack • Cambridge, Harston Mill • 20 staff, looking for one student • Hardware and software development on LTE protocol stack

  6. History of RIM • RIM is almost 30 years old • BlackBerry is only 12 years old

  7. BlackBerry (circa 1998)

  8. BlackBerry (c.2000)

  9. BlackBerry (c.2004-5)

  10. BlackBerry (c.2006-7)

  11. BlackBerry (2008-9)

  12. BlackBerry (2010)

  13. BlackBerry (2010)

  14. BlackBerry (2011) Check out the PlayBook Preview on YouTube

  15. Working for RIM

  16. Development Opportunities ? • RIM develops its own devices (mostly): • Internal design, look and feel, patented keypad • Plastic mouldings, case, trims... • Buys in the LCD, camera, other peripherals • Board layout but doesn’t design silicon (yet !) • Product Development Centres • Originally just Canada, but now USA, Germany • RIM has its own manufacturing plants

  17. What about Software ? • BlackBerry Apps • Large team of 2000+ developers • Mostly develop in Java • Smart Phone services and Super Apps • App World • Strong developer community for BlackBerry • Open SDK is J2ME based • WebKit, HTML and others • Adobe AIR and FLASH (native support on QNX)

  18. What About Software ?? • What is BlackBerry ? • Push email • Always On, Always Connected (™) • Much imitated, never bettered  Provides a secure data pipe back though the user’s firewall or to a user’s Internet mail account • It’s an end to end service • Internet relay, BB infrastructure • BB Enterprise and Internet Servers

  19. What Do We Do in UK ? • BlackBerry uses radio to connect to its infrastructure • WiFi at home, office or via hotspot coverage • Cellular Radio, via mobile operators (Voda, O2...) Cellular Radio Software is what we do !

  20. What is Cellular Radio ? What is Cellular Radio ?

  21. Cellular Radio • Phones can move around, still need to be reachable • Need a reliable wireless connection • A cell is the area covered by an RF transmitter • Operators provide a network of connected cells • Need to deal with real-world RF propagation • Resources are shared between all phones in a cell • Phones need to know about other cells nearby • Lots of intercommunication needed

  22. Cellular Network

  23. Circuit Switched • Historically making a call involved setting lots of electromechanical switches to form a complete circuit • A dedicated link is formed between callers • Emulated in the cellular network for voice hence circuit switched domain • Expensive as they hog resources from start to end of a call, but • Provides good quality of service

  24. Packet Switched • Provides data services and Internet access • It’s all about packets ! • Allows multiplexing of data streams for best use of resources by naturally bursty traffic • Typically a best effort service • IP packets are further subdivided over the air

  25. 2G and 3G Separated by Frequency Separated by Code

  26. 2G and 3G Spectrum • 2G cells that make up a network are deployed on a range of frequencies on a 200KHz raster and a 200KHz bandwidth • Neighbouring 2G cells are different in frequency • 3G cells in a network are deployed on a single frequency, with a 5MHz bandwidth • Neighbouring 3G cells are distinguished by their PSC Primary Scrambling Code

  27. 2G Technology • GSM was developed in Europe • Standardised in 1989 • Voice and SMS only • Uses time division multiplexing • GPRS (2.5G) for data added in 2000 • Data transfer rates of 80-90 Kbps • EDGE (2.75G) evolution for data, 2003 • Data transfer rates of 200 Kbps

  28. 3G Technology • UMTS uses W-CDMA techniques • European development • Standardised in 1999 • UK Spectrum auctions held in 2000 • CDMA 1x and CDMA 2000 (mainly American) • Qualcomm, narrow-band deployment • Code Division, Multiple Access • Wideband refers to the 5 MHz frequency spread

  29. CDMA Basics • Every device uses the entire 5MHz • Spreading – By sampling low rate user data at a higher rate, 3.84 M chips / sec • Channelisation Codes • Orthogonal Vectors • Pseudo-random scrambling codes • Despreading – Reverse the process at the receiver • Interference is not correlated • Effectively Filtered out • Regenerates the original signal • Maximum throughput of 384 Kbps

  30. Spreading In Action

  31. Power Control • All users transmit on the same frequency • Internal interference is biggest factor in S/N • Every user needs to dynamically adjust power • To reflect radio link conditions • Just enough power to maintain good signal quality • Optimises cell capacity (breathing) • Optimises battery life of device

  32. Advantages over 2G • Better spectral efficiency • More effective bits per Hz • Macrodiversity • Receives signal from multiple cells in range • Makes handovers easier • Copes with multipath better • Uses rake receiver to select strongest (temporal) signal

  33. Limitations of 3G • More complex than 2G • 10x more, needs hardware assistance ! • Handovers: Inter, Intra, soft and hard • Early releases have limited capacity • Typically only 3 or 4 active users per cell • Dedicated resources used for data • HSPA took the breaks off ! • 14.4 Mbps in DL, 5.6 Mbps in UL

  34. Protocol Stack Diagram Apps Core BlackBerry Applications Java Virtual Machine (JVM) IP Traffic Manager WLAN/IP Protocol Stack WLAN PHY Comms Core NAS GAS UAS WAS EDGE L1 Control FDD L1 Control DSP Core EDGE DSP FDD DSP

  35. Signalling Complexity

  36. Software Complexity • Finite State Machine representation • Events occur, raise signals • Signals cause state transitions and generate other signals • SDL methodology and tools • Also use C extensively • Design using Object Orientation • Embedded real-time requirements

  37. Student Opportunities Student Opportunities

  38. Student Internships • Currently Bhm looking for 4 students • 3 placements for 12 months (Jun 2011) • 1 MSc Level Project (6 or 12 months) • Graduate Opportunities • RIM doesn’t yet have a graduate recruitment scheme • Some jobs are suitable for graduates • More info at www.rim.com/students

  39. Thank You Any Questions ?

More Related