WEAF Technology Showcase - April 2016

The West of England Aerospace Forum (WEAF) is a membership trade association that supports the interests of the aerospace and defence industry in the South West of England. WEAF collaborates with partners like UKTI to provide critical support services such as export and marketing opportunities at major international trade exhibitions, like Farnborough and Paris. It also enjoys close links with the MOD.

The WEAF Technology Showcase events are a rare opportunity to get to know who the innovators are, what they are doing and to identify opportunities for your own organisation. If you are seeking the answers to one or more of these questions the Technology Showcase could be for you.

Tony represented Sarsen Technology at the lastest Technology Showcase, held at Renishaw Plc.  It was a great opportunity to learn about new technological developments in the sector, understand how other companies have maximised the benefit of their innovation, and allowed us to showcase selected product lines to developers and engineers who may not have been aware of them before.

Our display included the TRC2008 2U chassis from Trenton Systems, a selection of x86 boards from VersaLogic including the new Bengal 'Bay Trail' based module, and the Lumineq and BORA working model from DAVE Embedded Systems.

Check out the photos from the day below.

For more information on any of the products on display, or if you'd like to know more about WEAF please contact Tony Seal - tony.seal@sarsen.net or give us a call - 01672 511166.

BittWare Announces OpenPOWER CAPI DevKit for Xilinx FPGA-Enabled Accelerator Cards

FPGA platform supplier provides CAPI enabled FPGA accelerator cards for POWER8 processors.

April 2016

BittWare, an industry-leading board supplier for over 25 years, announced today an OpenPOWER CAPI Developer’s Kit for its Xilinx FPGA-enabled accelerator cards. Providing a fast, efficient way to connect the Xilinx All Programmable FPGA to a CAPI-enabled IBM POWER8 system, the developer’s kit includes the FPGA accelerator card, IBM Power Service Layer (PSL) IP to provide the connection to the POWER8 chip, CAPI host support library, and an example CAPI design.

The FPGA accelerator card included in the kit is BittWare’s XUSP3S, which is a ¾-length PCIe board featuring the Xilinx Virtex® UltraScale™ VU095, four QSFPs for 4x 100GbE, and flexible memory configurations with up to 64 GBytes of memory and support for Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC).

Most FPGA accelerators use PCIe to connect to the host processor unit. IBM has developed CAPI (Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface) as an alternative that takes some of the overhead and complexity out of the I/O subsystem by providing a direct interface between the host and the FPGA. Developers can run their specific FPGA solutions as a peer to the IBM POWER8 cores, enabling higher system performance with less programming complexity.

“BittWare is pleased to work with Xilinx and IBM to offer CAPI enabled FPGA acceleration platforms for POWER processors,” said Ron Huizen, VP of Systems and Solutions at BittWare. “Our XUSP3S board is a compelling option for data center applications, and with the addition of CAPI will now allow our customers to develop their applications even more quickly and efficiently.”

“CAPI on POWER8 systems provides a high-performance solution for implementing customer-specific, computation-heavy algorithms on an FPGA,” said Sumit Gupta, VP, High Performance Computing & Data Analytics at IBM. “The IBM solution enables higher system performance with a much smaller programming investment, allowing hybrid computing to be successful across a much broader range of applications. BittWare’s CAPI support brings this innovation to an even wider range of customers.”

“The demand for FPGA acceleration in data centers is increasing, and with that the need for innovative, high performance accelerator solutions,” said Curtis Pulley, data center business manager at Xilinx. “The CAPI-enabled Xilinx FPGA-based offerings from BittWare are a great addition to the OpenPOWER ecosystem and extend our efforts to deliver industry-leading solutions for IBM POWER systems.”

Availability
BittWare’s OpenPOWER CAPI Developer’s Kit will be available in early Q2 2016. Contact Sarsen Technology for details.



About OpenPOWER

BittWare is a member of the OpenPOWER Foundation, an open development community based on the POWER microprocessor architecture. The Foundation includes a growing roster of technology organizations working collaboratively to build advanced server, networking, storage, and acceleration technology as well as industry-leading open source software aimed at delivering more choice, control, and flexibility to developers of next-generation, hyperscale, and cloud data centers. The group makes POWER hardware and software available to open development for the first time, as well as making POWER intellectual property licensable to others, greatly expanding the ecosystem of innovators on the platform.

To learn more about OpenPOWER and to view the complete list of current members, go to www.openpowerfoundation.org.

About BittWare, Inc.

For over 25 years, BittWare has designed and deployed high-end network processing, signal processing, and high performance computing platforms that significantly reduce technology risk and time-to revenue for our OEM customers. Our products utilize the latest FPGA technologies on industry-standard COTS form factors, including PCIe, and are available either as boards or in systems. We also provide a great deal of value-add with IP, software, support, and services. When customer requirements make it difficult to use industry-standard boards, BittWare can provide modified solutions and/or licensed designs. For more information on BittWare and its innovative FPGA platform solutions, visit www.bittware.com/xilinx.

Learn more: Find your solution... Built on BittWare.

NMI FPGA Network: Safety, Certification & Security Event - 19th May 2016

Date:	May 19 @ 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
Event:	FPGA Network: Safety, Certification & Security
Venue:	Room A166 and Room A161, Lindop Building, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane Campus - College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB

Programmable devices are one of the most important platforms for electronic system design. In the last few years FPGA devices have become increasingly sophisticated and capable, allowing them to sit at the heart of a wide range of product and system designs. This trend is set to continue into even greater volume markets as performance improves even more.

Because of their extensive market appeal the emphasis on safety, security and regulation through certification for FPGA based designs has become more important than ever. This event will explore technology issues implementing FPGA based systems where safety and security are prime considerations and when standards based certification must be met.

NMI’s network meetups assemble a melting pot of engineers from different sectors to share experience and latest experience. The aim is to educate and enthral and to return to the work place with ideas, solutions and knowledge. The content of the meeting will be geared for a technical audience with ample time for discussion and networking.

Confirmed speakers include:

Would you like to speak? There a few open slots and NMI invites you to propose a topic.
It’s a great way to connect with the industry and to show case the cool stuff your company does.

For more information please contact Pete Davy – 07979 706 357.


About NMI

www.nmi.org

NMI is the Champion for the UK Electronic Systems & Technology Industry. Their mission is to help make the UK a leading location for electronic systems and technology businesses.They aim to support their members’ short-term priorities and the industry’s long-term needs. NMI's work covers innovation, operational excellence, investment, the skills agenda, advocacy and representation.