The 4G idea that a Cloud RAN really could run entirely on standard cloud processors (except for the RF chips of course) has been exploded by the demanding requirements of 5G. This has put optimized silicon, usually based on customized ASIC chips, back in the spotlight as a key source of competitive differentiation, and one where large vendors with deep pockets clear have the kind of advantage they will no longer enjoy in RAN software, if more democratic platforms such as O-RAN are adopted at scale. Processing of advanced beamforming and dynamic spectrum sharing, for instance, needs high levels of acceleration if these functions are to run in a cloud-based distributed unit (DU). Or they can be left on the…