Facebook parent Meta, AMD partner for a mobile infrastructure program

Facebook parent, Meta Platforms Inc, and chip maker AMD on Wednesday said they were partnering for a mobile internet infrastructure program that would bring base station costs down to make broadband more accessible around the world.

The program, called Evenstar, was launched by Meta in early 2020 and promotes a platform called OpenRan that makes it possible for cellular network operators to mix and match hardware and software for building base stations instead of buying all of it from one equipment maker.

That gives operators more flexibility and makes equipment pricing more competitive, said Gilles Garcia, an executive with AMD's data center and communications group.

"They have a very aggressive target for the cost, because Meta is also trying to cover the uncovered regions and the underdeveloped countries. So they want to make sure there are more and more people connected," said Garcia.

AMD said its radio chip, Xilinx Zynq UltraScale RFSoC, will be used in the Evenstar radio units.

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