Austin R&D Center
In the Austin R&D Center, we use leading-edge tools and methodologies to develop innovative 5G technology. The focus is on microelectronics and accelerating the path to 5G commercialization. We are looking beyond 5G, into the future of 6G and 7G, designing technology that has a positive impact on our world and solving society’s most complicated challenges.
Bringing research and development investment to Texas
Our Austin Research and Development Center is instrumental in helping maintain Ericsson’s leadership position in 5G technology. Our Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) design, Customer-Owned Tooling (COT), and Baseband (BB) software groups collaborate together, and with their sister teams in Sweden, developing mobile telecommunications infrastructure hardware and software solutions accelerating that position.
Employees in 2024
Research and development center
A long-time telecommunications industry leader, Ericsson opened an R&D center in the heart of downtown Austin in 2017. Our R&D investment and presence in Austin supports our focused business strategy, which includes technology leadership and a better customer experience.
Ericsson has a leading position in the early 5G market, as shown by landmark 5G patent applications and the launch of the world’s first 5G early adopter platform. We are the leading provider of network equipment that is preparing global service providers for commercial 5G network launches.
Our Austin R&D Center is a strategic investment in maintaining our leadership position in 5G technology. Austin provides a rich hardware and software talent pool, and its location enhances collaboration with our vendors, partners, service providers and customers in the U.S. ASICs and software developed in Austin will be instrumental in the global 5G mobile telecommunications infrastructure, which will usher in industrial digitalization and realization of IoT communication. Ericsson Austin is directly enabling the processing power necessary to deliver on the promise of a digitally connected society.
ASIC hardware
The Austin ASIC hardware development team was started in 2017 to bring Ericsson Silicon Design closer to our customers in North America, and take advantage of the highly skilled workforce and partner ecosystem in and around the Austin area. The Austin ASIC development team is primarily active in the front-end design of the Ericsson silicon chips that power digital elements in the Ericsson Radio System, including RAN Compute, radios, basebands, antenna arrays, and integrated solutions. This group develops highly efficient ASIC and FieldProgrammable Gate Array (FPGA) System on a Chip (SoC) designs that enable the Ericsson Radio System to deliver industry-leading performance, reduction of power consumption, and a variety of form factors to meet our customers deployment requirements.
Baseband software
Ericsson’s Austin software team was added in 2019. This team is responsible for baseband software across the 5G RAN portfolio. This includes advanced features such as Uplink Booster and Critical IoT. This team is currently refreshing the software for new releases across all baseband products, developing compiler technology and development tools. The team also works on special features to support customers in the market, providing the software that supported the 5G extended-range milestone over millimeter Wave (mmWave) that Ericsson showcased with USCellular, Qualcomm and Inseego in June 2021. This is a powerful example of how radio software can help address societal challenges like the digital divide.
Customer-Owned Tooling (COT)
The COT team works with internal and external partners on the back-end design, development and testing of Ericsson ASIC designs. This includes product engineering, physical design, power integrity, circuit design, CAD, methodology, packaging and test engineering. The close collaboration with the front-end design teams in Austin and Sweden bring end-to-end capability that ensures Ericsson Radio System based on Ericsson custom silicon deliver the power consumption profile, processing power, and cost to meet our customers’ needs. This team, part of the comprehensive investment in R&D, ensures that Ericsson networks will continue to lead the market, as technology and standards evolve to meet price, performance and deployment flexibility requirements from communications service providers in the U.S. and globally.
ASIC Validation and System Debug team
The latest addition to the Austin R&D organization, Ericsson’s ASIC Validation and System Debug group is responsible for developing and implementing industry standard ASIC Validation methodology for functional, performance, power and thermal initiatives. The team also specializes in debugging complex ASIC system issues of baseband and radio products through end of life. The ASIC Validation and System Debug team acts as the liaison organization between Ericsson’s ASIC design and software teams to enable a smooth production launch and provide support for ASIC field failures for triaging.