Samsung and Vodafone Strengthen Open RAN Ecosystem with AMD EPYC 8004 Series

Samsung, Vodafone, and AMD have successfully demonstrated an end-to-end call using the latest AMD processors, showcasing their technical leadership in enriching the Open RAN ecosystem and their commitment to delivering innovative mobile networks.

Samsung, Vodafone, and AMD have successfully demonstrated an end-to-end call using the latest AMD processors, showcasing their technical leadership in enriching the Open RAN ecosystem.
The joint demonstration highlights Samsung and Vodafone's commitment to strengthening their position in the Open RAN market and expanding their ecosystem with industry-leading partners.
Samsung's strong ecosystem showcases its leadership in providing reliable and sustainable vRAN and Open RAN solutions that exceed telco-grade performance, solidifying its position as a key player in the mobile network industry.

Samsung Electronics, Vodafone, and AMD have announced a significant milestone in the mobile network industry. The three companies have successfully demonstrated an end-to-end call using the latest AMD processors, enabling Open RAN technology. This achievement showcases their technical leadership in enriching the Open RAN ecosystem.

The first call was completed in Samsung’s R&D lab in Korea, utilizing Samsung’s versatile, O-RAN-compliant, virtualized RAN (vRAN) software powered by AMD EPYC 8004 Series processors on Supermicro’s Telco/Edge servers. The Wind River Studio Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform provided additional support. The purpose of this demonstration was to verify optimized performance, energy efficiency, and interoperability among the partners’ solutions.

This joint demonstration highlights Samsung and Vodafone’s commitment to strengthening their position in the Open RAN market and expanding their ecosystem with industry-leading partners. The growing Open RAN ecosystem enables operators to build and modernize mobile networks with greater flexibility, faster time-to-market, and unmatched performance.

Nadia Benabdallah, Network Strategy and Engineering Director at Vodafone Group, emphasized the significance of Open RAN innovation and Vodafone’s dedication to delivering on its promise. June Moon, Executive Vice President & Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics, expressed Samsung’s commitment to embracing openness and delivering the full potential of mobile networks through collaboration with technology frontrunners.

Kumaran Siva, Corporate Vice President of Strategic Market Development at AMD, highlighted the telco industry’s demand for performance and energy efficiency and how AMD EPYC 8004 Series CPUs are optimized for modern edge and vRAN deployment models. He expressed pride in the collaboration with Samsung and Vodafone to modernize telco infrastructure and deliver the leadership Open RAN performance needed for innovative mobile networks.

Prakash Sangam, Founder & Principal of Tantra Analyst, recognized the technical achievement between Samsung, Vodafone, and AMD, validating the enhanced capabilities of their solutions and supporting new vendors in the evolving Open RAN ecosystem.

The companies plan to demonstrate their test result exceeding 1 GB/s throughput for multi UE on multi-cell configuration at MWC 2024.

This collaboration between Samsung, Vodafone, and AMD stems from Samsung’s strategic partnership with Vodafone in June 2021 to modernize legacy networks and foster an Open RAN ecosystem. Since then, the companies have been expanding their collaboration, recently initiating the largest Open RAN rollout in the U.K. in August 2023. Samsung has also formed a new collaboration with AMD to advance 5G vRAN and virtualized Open RAN for network transformation.

Samsung’s strong ecosystem showcases its leadership in providing reliable and sustainable vRAN and Open RAN solutions that exceed telco-grade performance. The company aims to pre-test and integrate its solutions to offer network operators an efficient path to market. With its extensive expertise in commercial networks for Tier 1 operators worldwide, Samsung has proven its ability to deliver 5G end-to-end solutions and drive the advancement of 5G networks.

Through ongoing research and development, Samsung continues to lead the industry with its market-leading product portfolio, including vRAN 3.0, Open RAN, Core, private network solutions, and AI-powered automation tools. The company’s network solutions connect hundreds of millions of users globally, solidifying its position as a key player in the mobile network industry.

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Background Information

About AMD: AMD, a large player in the semiconductor industry is known for its powerful processors and graphic solutions, AMD has consistently pushed the boundaries of performance, efficiency, and user experience. With a customer-centric approach, the company has cultivated a reputation for delivering high-performance solutions that cater to the needs of gamers, professionals, and general users. AMD's Ryzen series of processors have redefined the landscape of desktop and laptop computing, offering impressive multi-core performance and competitive pricing that has challenged the dominance of its competitors. Complementing its processor expertise, AMD's Radeon graphics cards have also earned accolades for their efficiency and exceptional graphical capabilities, making them a favored choice among gamers and content creators. The company's commitment to innovation and technology continues to shape the client computing landscape, providing users with powerful tools to fuel their digital endeavors.

About Samsung: Samsung, a South Korean multinational conglomerate, has established itself as a global leader in various industries, including electronics, technology, and more. Founded in 1938, Samsung's influence spans from smartphones and consumer electronics to semiconductors and home appliances. With a commitment to innovation, Samsung has contributed products like the Galaxy series of smartphones, QLED TVs, and SSDs that have revolutionized the way we live and work.

About Supermicro: Supermicro is a reputable American technology company founded in 1993 and headquartered in San Jose, California. Specializing in high-performance server and storage solutions, Supermicro has become a trusted name in the data center industry. The company offers a wide range of innovative and customizable server hardware, including motherboards, servers, storage systems, and networking equipment, catering to the needs of enterprise clients, cloud service providers, and businesses seeking reliable infrastructure solutions.

Technology Explained

EPYC: EPYC is a technology designed by computer chip manufacturer AMD for use in the server and data center industry. It was introduced in June 2017 and features an innovative design to improve performance and power efficiency. EPYC processor technology is based on an innovative 14nm processor architecture, allowing up to 32 high-performance cores in a single socket. This allows for more efficient processing power, increased memory bandwidth, and greater compute density. EPYC is now widely used in the data center and cloud computing industry and provides benefits such as greater scalability, increased resource efficiency, and advanced virtualization capabilities. Additionally, EPYC technology is used in data intensive servers like server farms, gaming, and virtualization platforms. EPYC ensures that even with large deployments in multi-processor environments, power consumption and performance levels are optimized to ensure maximum efficiency.