New signal processing board from BittWare
based on Altera's Stratix IV FPGAs
BittWare has released the S4-3U-VPX (S43X) board, a COTS
3U VPX card based on Altera's Stratix IV GX FPGA, at Africa
Aerospace & Defence 2010. The board provides a configurable
25-port SerDes interface supporting a variety of protocols
including Serial RapidIO, PCI Express, and 10 GigE. This
board also features 10/100/1000 Ethernet, and up to 4 GB
of DDR3 SDRAM. This device has VITA 57-compliant FMC site,
which supports 10 SerDes, 60 LVDS pairs, and six clocks,
and enables the addition of a VITA-57 daughter card for
added processing, data conversion, or both. BittWare's ATLANTiS
FrameWork and FINe Host/Control Bridge simplify application
development.
"Developing a complete FPGA-based embedded system
is an enormous task," stated Ron Huizen, VP of Technology
at BittWare. "We've taken on a critical portion of
that task by providing our customers with a VITA 65 (VPX)
Stratix IV GX FPGA signal processing board supported by
our ATLANTiS FrameWork for FPGAs. Developers now have a
proven, validated COTS platform on which to add their application
specific code, thus reducing risk and decreasing their time-to-market
with a product that can be modified and upgraded at any
point."
"BittWare and Altera have a long history of working
closely together to provide high-performance, reconfigurable
FPGA-based COTS boards to the industry," said David
Gamba, senior manager of Altera's military business unit.
"By leveraging the Stratix IV GX FPGA's low-power,
multi-gigabit transceivers and high-density, high-performance
architecture, BittWare's S43X board delivers a rugged and
completely flexible signal processing solution that is ideally
suited to address SWaP constraints in mobile military application."
The S43X is suggested for extended temperature, conduction
cooled, military and defense applications in radar, electronic
warfare, image processing, and signal intelligence and commercial
applications in communications, industrial control, and
medical imaging. The board delivers 25 full-duplex, multi-gigabit
transceivers using the Stratix IV GX FPGA, supporting PCI
Express (Rev 1.0/2.0), 10 GigE, GigE, Serial RapidIO (Rev
1.0/2.0), and SerialLite II standards. It contains up to
530k equivalent logic elements (LEs), over 20 Mbits of embedded
memory, and 1,024 embedded 18x18 multipliers. The FPGA implements
BittWare's ATLANTiS FrameWork. A debug utility header provides
10/100 Ethernet, two RS-232 ports, and a JTAG port for debug
support. The rear panel VPX interface includes GigE to the
FINe, and 15 SerDes channels and 32 LVDS pairs (16 in, 16
out) to the Stratix IV GX FPGA.
The FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) site provides 8 SerDes, 2
additional SerDes, and 60 LVDS pairs, along with 6 clocks,
I2C, JTAG and reset to the Stratix IV GX FPGA. The connector
is compliant with the VITA 57 mezzanine standard.
Availability: BittWare will begin shipping Early
Access Units to its lead customer in Q4 2010 with OEM quantities
available in Q1 2011.
