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Guilford-based start-up Lime Microsystems has launched a reference design for MicroTCA broadband wireless transceivers. Targeted at small-cell WiMAX base-station applications (femtocells and picocells), the transceiver has six user-selectable channel bandwidths - from 1.5 to 14MHz - and can be digitally configured to operate in bands from 2 to 4GHz. The reconfigurable design supports a variety of network configurations, bandwidths and data rates. This minimises costs and inventory for wireless-system OEMs and operators. Using a high-level command set, the design can be configured for half- and full-duplex operation in both frequency-division-multiplex and time-division-multiplex modes. The board can also be used as a plug-and-play transceiver for rapid evaluation and deployment of WiMax infrastructure. The zero-IF transceiver uses 12-bit baseband ADCs and DACs. A 40MHz sampling rate is derived from a low-noise clock.