MaxLinear's Sierra Chip Aims to Power Open RAN's Next Big Leap

BARCELONA, Spain – March 02, 2026 – As the telecommunications industry gathers for Mobile World Congress 2026, MaxLinear, Inc. is positioning itself as a pivotal force in the evolution of 5G infrastructure. The company is showcasing a growing ecosystem of commercially available Open RAN Radio Units (O-RUs) built around its highly integrated Sierra single-chip radio System-on-Chip (SoC). The demonstrations, featuring new hardware from partners Pegatron, Samji, and Zenlynx, signal a critical maturation of the Open RAN market, where advanced silicon is becoming the key to unlocking the architecture's long-held promises of flexibility and efficiency.

MaxLinear's showcase arrives at a crucial moment for Open RAN, an industry initiative designed to disaggregate network hardware and software to foster a more competitive and innovative vendor landscape. While the vision is compelling, its real-world implementation has been a complex journey. The new Sierra-powered radios represent a tangible step forward, addressing core challenges of performance, power consumption, and physical size that have hindered broader adoption.

Open RAN: A Market at a Crossroads

The Open RAN market is a landscape of immense potential tempered by significant practical hurdles. Industry forecasts paint a bullish long-term picture; the market, valued at an estimated $3.98 billion in 2025, is projected by some analysts to surge to nearly $20 billion by 2030. This growth is driven by major network operators like AT&T, Vodafone, and NTT Docomo, who are moving from trials to substantive deployments. AT&T’s landmark $14 billion deal with Ericsson, for example, aims to have 70% of its U.S. wireless traffic flowing through open platforms by the end of 2026.

The core drivers are clear: operators seek to break free from proprietary, single-vendor systems to reduce costs, increase supply chain diversity, and accelerate innovation. However, the path has been anything but smooth. A 2025 GSMA Intelligence survey showed that the percentage of operators in early deployment phases had only inched from 21% in 2019 to 22%, suggesting that initial momentum has faced headwinds.

Operators have voiced persistent concerns regarding the complexities of multi-vendor system integration, which can lead to operational inefficiencies and a higher-than-expected total cost of ownership (TCO). Performance parity with traditional, highly optimized RAN systems, especially concerning energy efficiency and stability, remains a primary focus. It is precisely these challenges—power, performance, and cost—that MaxLinear aims to solve at the component level with its Sierra SoC.

Sierra's Technical Edge: Redefining the Radio Unit

The significance of MaxLinear’s announcement lies in the advanced technology integrated into the Sierra chip. By packing sophisticated digital signal processing capabilities into a single piece of silicon, it enables O-RU manufacturers to build smaller, lighter, and more power-efficient radios, directly tackling the industry's most pressing concerns.

Two key features stand out: Digital Pre-distortion (DPD) and Passive Intermodulation (PIM) cancellation.

• Advanced Digital Pre-distortion (DPD): Power amplifiers (PAs), which are essential for transmitting signals, are most efficient when run near their maximum power but become highly non-linear, creating distortion that interferes with adjacent channels. DPD is a sophisticated technique that digitally pre-warps the signal before it reaches the PA, effectively canceling out the amplifier's distortion. Sierra's advanced DPD allows PAs to run at higher efficiency levels without sacrificing signal quality. The real-world impact is significant: O-RUs consume less power and generate less heat, reducing the need for bulky and expensive cooling systems. This directly contributes to a lower operational carbon footprint and a reduced TCO for network operators.

• Integrated PIM Cancellation: Passive Intermodulation is a vexing form of interference generated when strong signals mix in passive components like cables and antennas. This "noise" can degrade the radio's receiver sensitivity, reducing network capacity and coverage. Traditionally, mitigating PIM requires expensive, high-precision components and meticulous installation. Sierra's integrated PIM cancellation technology digitally detects and removes this interference, ensuring a cleaner signal. This not only improves network performance but also gives O-RU designers more flexibility, helping shrink the final product's size and cost.

By combining these functions with a dense RF front-end and an O-RAN compliant fronthaul interface on a single chip, Sierra dramatically simplifies the design and manufacturing process for radio vendors.

Building a Diverse and Capable Ecosystem

Technology alone is not enough to build a market. MaxLinear’s strategy hinges on enabling a broad ecosystem of hardware partners, and its MWC showcase is a testament to this approach. The variety of partners and products demonstrates Sierra's versatility across different 5G deployment scenarios.

The Pegatron PR2850 Macro O-RU is a carrier-grade radio designed for large-scale outdoor deployments. As a massive electronics manufacturer, Pegatron brings the scale and experience needed to produce reliable hardware in volume, a critical factor for operators planning widespread Open RAN rollouts.

Similarly, the Samji SNOO2-44N28 Macro O-RU highlights the adoption of Sierra by established telecommunications equipment providers. Samji's next-generation radio leverages the chip to deliver exceptional RF performance with low power consumption, targeting cost-effective network expansions.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Zenlynx RRU4401S Indoor O-RU. This unit addresses the growing demand for high-performance indoor coverage in enterprises, venues, and neutral-host environments. Zenlynx's focus on a compact, power-efficient design for these specialized use cases shows the adaptability of the Sierra platform.

This multi-vendor support is the lifeblood of the Open RAN philosophy. By providing a common, high-performance silicon platform, MaxLinear is helping to foster a competitive supply chain, giving network operators a genuine choice of interoperable hardware and accelerating the availability of commercial-grade O-RUs.

Paving the Way for Commercial Scale and a Greener 5G

The transition from press releases about technical specifications to live demonstrations of commercial-ready hardware from multiple vendors marks a significant inflection point for MaxLinear and the broader Open RAN movement. It signals that the underlying technology is maturing to a point where it can meet the stringent demands of network operators.

For MaxLinear, the Sierra platform represents a major strategic investment in the future of wireless infrastructure. As Open RAN deployments accelerate, success will be measured by the ability to ship silicon in volume. Securing design wins with diverse partners like Pegatron, Samji, and Zenlynx is a crucial step in capturing market share in the competitive radio SoC space. The high level of integration in Sierra could also translate to healthier profit margins, making it a key potential growth engine for the company's wireless infrastructure business.

Ultimately, the progress showcased at MWC 2026 underscores a critical industry trend: the push for more sustainable, efficient, and open network architectures. By enabling the development of O-RUs that consume less power and have a smaller physical footprint, enabling technologies like the Sierra SoC are not just facilitating a shift in business models but are also helping to build a greener, more scalable foundation for the future of 5G and beyond.

The path to full-scale, global Open RAN deployment remains a multi-year journey, but the emergence of powerful, integrated silicon solutions is proving to be an indispensable catalyst for turning that vision into a commercial reality.