Introduction & Overview

Time Synchronization is fundamental to the performance of a cellular network and the services it offers. Increasing growth in 5G and edge deployments is driving demand for high-precision timing synchronization across the network. If the radio clock loses synchronization accuracy in a radio access network (RAN), or the radios are out of synchronization, interference between cells is likely. This issue wasn’t a significant concern in legacy networks, but as we transition to 5G it becomes a really big deal. Accurate packet timing synchronization is critical to enabling a quality experience for real-time applications. To support fully packet-based voice and other real-time applications, 5G networks will need packet synchronization with very high accuracy. This is driving the need for specialized network adapter cards that can synchronize timing with nanosecond accuracy for the most demanding real-time applications and services. Most of these adapter cards will use the 1588 precision Time Protocol (PTP) to ensure the required phase accuracy across the network. GENEViSiO’s PTP-i12 & PTP-i21 IEEE-1588 SmartNIC meets these requirements in a standard-based PCI Express Ethernet adapter that provides greater flexibility and lower total cost of ownership than today’s single-purpose PTP application in the O-RAN structure.