Samsung and AMD collaborate to advance 5G vRAN for network transformation

Samsung Electronics and US chipmaker AMD have entered into a technical partnership to advance 5G virtualized RAN (vRAN) for network transformation. The collaboration aims to unlock a wider set of choices for operators to build high-capacity, energy-efficient networks and modernize them with unmatched flexibility and optimized performance, the South Korean firm announced on Monday.

"This technical collaboration demonstrates Samsung's commitment to delivering network flexibility and high performance for service providers by building a larger vRAN and Open RAN ecosystem. Samsung has been at the forefront of unleashing the full potential of 5G vRAN technology to meet rising demands, and we look forward to collaborating with industry leaders like AMD to provide operators with the capabilities to transform their networks," said Henrik Jansson, Vice President and Head of SI Business Group, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics.

AMD and Samsung have conducted several rounds of tests at the latter's lab to verify high-capacity and telco-grade performance using Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) bands and Time-division duplexing (TDD) Massive MIMO wide-bands, while significantly reducing power consumption.

Under this partnership, Samsung leveraged its versatile vRAN software integrated with the new AMD EPYC 8004 processors, focused on telco and intelligent edge. The integration of EPYC 8004 processors with Samsung's vRAN solutions resulted in optimized cell capacity per server as well as high power efficiency.

The South Korean tech giant said it will continue working with the US chipmaker to facilitate the acceleration of vRAN and Open RAN for 5G and drive new innovation for next-generation networks.

"By integrating our AMD EPYC processors with Samsung's leading vRAN solution, operators will have a powerful tool with the incredible energy efficiency and balanced performance needed for this environment. It's great to be collaborating with Samsung in 5G vRAN solutions to leverage our market-leading products for the data center and tackle key challenges of the telco edge and RAN environment," said Lynn Comp, Corporate Vice President, Technical Marketing, Server Business at AMD.