INTERVIEW BRENDAN FARLEY
Delivering the infrastructure for 5G
Brendan Farley, MD of Xilinx EMEA, discusses the phased roll-out of 5G infrastructure
and the opportunities that will create. By Neil Tyler
Based in Ireland, Brendan Farley is managing director of
Xilinx EMEA and vice-president for wireless engineering with
responsibility for the development and roll-out of technologies
that will support the deployment of 5G infrastructure.
Appointed to the position last year he has to manage teams and a
complex R&D process that spans Ireland, the UK, Germany, US and
India while ensuring that all the company’s key functions, whether
that’s R&D, sales, marketing, HR, IT, nance and legal are working
effectively together.
“Our work is focused on developing the infrastructure that’s needed
to deliver 5G and that means working very closely with our customers
and partners, as they look to deliver new applications and services,”
Farley explains.
“Xilinx’s products are used in cellular base stations, and the roll-out
of 5G has proved a signicant opportunity for the company and much of
the R&D activity takes place here in Ireland.”
Prior to his appointment Farley held a number of senior engineering
management roles within Xilinx, and before joining the company had
worked for many years in the Irish technology sector.
“It’s been an interesting few months and my appointment, which
coincided with changed working practices as a result of the pandemic,
has meant that it’s been even more important to stay in touch with the
team and keep people motivated and informed.
“Likewise with our customer engagement we’ve probably been far
more active using tools like Zoom, but I think there’s now a real desire
to get back to normal and re-establish those personal relationships that
are so important in this business. However, we don’t want to lose the
benets working online has brought, whether that’s breaking down old
formalities of lots of people having to turn up on site to make decisions
or simply enabling decision-making to be faster.”
Turning to 5G and the roll-out of the infrastructure necessary
to support it, Farley says that the acceleration in the commercial
deployment of 5G is driving the market forward.
“The commercial roll-out of 5G has certainly picked up and as
a consequence we’re seeing increased investment in network
infrastructure in order to meet the needs of 5G users. Xilinx has been
front and centre here, helping to upgrade networks across China, South
Korea and in North America.”
The strength of Xilinx’s portfolio lies in the programmability and
adaptability of its FPGAs and SoCs.
“Specications are constantly changing,” Farley points out, “along
with the features that need to be supported. It’s difcult to keep up with
these changes if you’re designing with ASICs, so the exibility that our
adaptable SoCs and FPGAs provide has made them far more suitable.”
A phased roll-out
According to Farley the roll out of 5G will need to be phased.
“The rst phase is about upgrading the infrastructure from 4G to 5G
in order to support traditional operator business models. Our technology
is being used to increase capacity and reduce latency and that’s
happening now – and we’re playing very strongly in that.
“For operators though that’s not enough. They will not consider 5G
a success until they are able to develop new revenue streams from new
verticals – and that will require heavy investment. But that’s essential
and that’s what we’ll see in Phase 2.”
Farley suggests that Phase 2 will see new revenues from new
applications which will be driven by the operability and integration of
various OpenRAN solutions.
“This whole process is closely tied in with OpenRAN, one of the
cornerstones of which is the separation of hardware and software,
particularly at the edge – in other words the base band next to the
tower. At the moment the use of ASICs is widespread and there’s
a focus on proprietary hardware. We are now seeing a move to the
virtualisation of the base band with software doing most of the signal
processing that was traditionally done by an ASIC.”
14 9 March 2021 www.newelectronics.co.uk
/www.newelectronics.co.uk