VoIP
Overview
More than 70 percent of all Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) products shipping worldwide today are MIPS-BasedTM solutions. VoIP is revolutionizing telecommunications as optimized speech quality, network delay and quality of service (QoS) continue to dramatically improve the user experience. Regulators are easing restrictions to allow VoIP into the mainstream, and MIPS® licensees are experiencing healthy market growth.
Traditionally, telephone signals were connected between parties using circuit-switched technology. In VoIP communications, the voice signal is packetized and sent across the Internet using packet-switched protocols such as ITU-T H.323 and SIP. With VoIP, phones connect to an Ethernet jack (or wireless WiFi router) instead of a traditional phone jack.
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is the next step beyond VoIP. IMS allows audio, video, images and other media signals to be communicated in addition to and together with voice and fax signals as in VoIP. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) have played key roles in driving this convergence of fixed and mobile networks.
Challenges
Moving telecom from circuit-switched to packet-switched technology involves two major challenges. First, the speech or other media must be effectively compressed and safe-guarded from transmission error. Second, the packet network protocols must connect the correct parties and ensure communications are handled properly.
From the user terminal viewpoint, especially when wireless, the solution must be low cost, fit into a small form factor and draw minimal battery current. From the network operator standpoint, extremely high performance systems are needed to handle as many connections as possible with the lowest possible latency and guaranteed high levels of QoS.
MIPS Technologies Solutions
The DSP extensions that are standard issue on the MIPS32® 24KETM, 34K and MIPS32® 74KTM cores offer significant speed-up of 16-bit fixed-point voice coding algorithms. PMC-Sierra announced a significant packet throughput improvement compared to single-threaded processors of similar frequency using the multi-threaded MIPS32® 34KTM core. Infineon announced a dual-core solution based on the 24KETM core.
Voice coding solutions are available from a number of MIPS Ecosystem partners such as AudioCodes, D2 Technologies, Hellosoft, Trinity Convergence, and others. D2 offers a complete software solution on RISC-only SoCs for VoIP endpoint products, including MIPS-Based reference designs and a list of ITU-T and 3GPP voice codecs. Trinity Convergence offers a complete and integrated VoIP platform including media processing, packet handling and call control functionality for a client device.
