FONT RESIZE

Applications

3GPP - UMTS - LTE - LTE Advanced

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a collaborative effort among telecommunications associations to make globally applicable third generation (3G) and more recently fourth generation (4G) mobile phone system specifications. 3GPP specifications are based on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) specification.

The groups leading the standardization of 3GPP are the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the Association of Japanese Radio Industries and Businesses/Telecommunication Technology Committee (ARIB/TTC), the China Communications Standards Association, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (North America) and Telecommunications Technology Association (South Korea).

Another term commonly seen is 3GPP/LTE. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution and it is the name given to a project within the 3GPP to improve the universal mobile telecommunications standard (UMTS). The LTE project resulted in Release 8 of the UMTS standard, including extensions and modifications of the UMTS system. LTE Advanced (Release 10) is a more recent project that addresses the 4G technology requirements, such as increased data rates and reduced latency.

For customers considering femtocell applications, please read Elliptic's article on the web portal Design and Reuse through this link.

Elliptic offers a variety of hardware and software solutions to support UMTS, LTE and LTE Advanced specifications (Releases 7, 8, 9 and 10). Elliptic's IP products range from cipher primitives, to multi-mode Look Aside and Flow Through cores, to more complex solutions targeted at eNodeB base station, handset and femtocell applications.

Elliptic has incorporated two new confidentiality (128-EEA3) and integrity (128-EIA3) algorithms in its Ellipsys cryptographic software library. These algorithms, based on the Chinese-developed stream cipher ZUC and expected to be defined and released this year, are intended for LTE and LTE-Advanced 3GPP wireless networks acceptable to the Chinese market. Early drafts for ZUC and its use in 128-EEA3 and 128-EIA3 algorithms can be found by clicking on this link. Hardware implementations for these new algorithms will follow. Please contact Elliptic for more information.

Elliptic examines the ever-changing security landscape and provides deep insight for emerging trends, new standards under development, vulnerabilities of existing algorithms and higher performance solutions through the release of its Standards Watch issues. The latest issue, provides an update on the latest 3GPP security standards, the upcoming third revision of NIST FIPS 140-3 and new trends in IPsec.

Cryptographic Primitives

CLP-400: Snow 3G Key Stream Generator - please contact Elliptic for more information
CLP-401: Kasumi Cipher - please contact Elliptic for more information

Flow Through and Look Aside Cores

Kasumi/f8/f9, UEA1/UIA1, GSM A5/3 and GPRS GEA3 mode support