Sarsen Christmas Opening Hours 2020

The Sarsen Technology offices will be closed for a well deserved break over the festive period.

If there is anything we can help you with before the end of the year please let us know. 

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our customers and suppliers a very merry and safe Christmas and New Year.

Thursday 24th December - Closed
Friday 25th December - Closed
Monday 28th December - Closed
Tuesday 29th December - Closed
Wednesday 30th December - Closed
Thursday 31st December - Closed
Friday 1st January 2020 - Closed
Monday 4th January - Open as normal

Technical support will be provided directly by our manufacturers.

Our Out of Hours Support infomation can be found here. 

Software Defined Radio Solutions - UK Supplier

 

Of all the technology discussions we’ve had with customers this year, some of the most interesting have been about cutting-edge software defined radios (SDRs).

In simple terms, an SDR is a communication system which is made up of radio components including filters, detection circuits and mixers, with all the modulation and demodulation of signals processed by a software package. Conventional radio systems are composed mostly of hardware, and as such cannot easily be re-configured. The SDR set up provides increased flexibility and capabilities over a traditional radio communication system.

The SDRs we have been talking about include several “hard” or fixed components including an Antenna, front-end RF Hardware, and an ADC or DAC. General purpose processors usually lack the I/O bandwidth and processing capabilities necessary for implementing anything other than basic SDRs, so we support a range of FPGA and RFSoC technology which provides both the I/O bandwidth necessary and the processing capabilities needed for implementing complex SDRs, and they can do so at multi-GHz sampling rates and GHz-range bandwidths.

COTS FMC + Mezzanine card with Xilinx Zynq RFSoC

 

 

 

Annapolis Micro Systems provides both the SDR hardware and firmware development tools necessary for creating SDR solutions quickly and easily. Their WILDSTAR™ baseboards provide FPGA processing capabilities fed directly from a large suite of I/O Mezzanine Cards, including RFSoC ADCs that provide industry-leading performance. For SDR development, their patented CoreFire Next™ and Open Project Builder™ Design Suites provide all the functionality needed for fast and dependable FPGA development.

 

Sources: 

Annapolis - SW Defined Radio

Wikipedia - Software-defined Radio

Could the ACHILLES ARRIA® 10 SoC SoM be the Right Module for Your Application?

The Achilles ARRIA® 10 SoC SoM board from REFLEX CES is the most integrated and full featured Arria 10 SoC system-on-module currently available in the market.

The Achilles features an ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore and up to 660KLEs of advanced low-power FPGA logic elements. It combines the flexibility and ease of a CPU with the parallel processing power of an FPGA, and is available in three different module types: Lite version, Turbo version and Indus version

Some of the main features include a highly integrated Intel Arria 10 SoC module, 270 or 660 KLE, commercial or industrial temperature grade, dual mode as a system-on-module or FMC carrier board and dual FMC capability.

Achilles is available as an instant dev-kit, which unites the Arria 10 SoC SoM with a starter board for quick prototyping and application testing. 

The target markets include Automotive, Video Broadcast, Machine and Intelligent Vision, Industrial, Military, Test & Measurement and Medical.

Take a look at the official Achilles ARRIA® 10SoC SoM Board promotional video.

You can also take a look at the producton our website for further information.

Why You Should Consider Using a Time Server in Your Network

 

One of our newest product lines runs the precision timing gamut from master clocks and digital displays right through to analog clocks and time servers.

Time servers are a key technology for many of our customers because proper network time synchronisation is an essential part of both monitoring and resolving issues within their network. Accurate timestamping is key to root-cause analysis, allowing users to establish when problems occurred and to find patterns within the data. If devices on the network are out of sync by even just a few milliseconds it can be very difficult to determine the sequence of events.

A time server is a clever little bit of kit that reads the time from a reference clock and sends the information to its clients using a computer network. The time server itself can be an internet time server, or a local network time server depending on the facility and user requirements.

Internet time servers can use a variety of well-defined protocols to distribute and sync time across the network; the most well-known and widely used of which is the Network Time Protocol (NTP) which has been in operation since 1985. 

The Masterclock NTP100 family of NTP time servers provide accurate timing to networks and conform to NTPv2 (RFC 1119), NTPv3 (RFC 1306) and NTPv4 (RFC 5905). Each NTP100 device can operate on a local area network (LAN) or act as an enterprise-wide source for legally-traceable time and date distribution, depending upon your network configuration requirements. 

Masterclock NTP servers are compatible with IPv4/IPv6 networks and offer AES256 SSH encryption, as well as MD5 authentication, for secure communications. All models are also available with an internal OCXO for increased holdover stability.

Our knowledgeable engineering team is available to discuss your time server requirements. Please contact us by email : info@sarsen.net or give us a call - 01672 511166 and we'll be happy to answer any questions you have regarding time servers, Masterclock or any of our other product lines.

Join EIZO Rugged Solutions at AUSA NOW 2020!

EIZO Rugged will be exhibiting at the AUSA NOW 2020 Virtual Conference, from 13-16 October.  While a virtual event may not replace the full experience of the in-person AUSA Annual Meeting, it will serve to maintain strong connections with senior Army leaders and messages, with industry partners and with AUSA members around the globe. AUSA is planning for a forum that allows reach beyond the 33,000-plus people that were expected in Washington, D.C., this year.

About EIZO Rugged

EIZO Rugged Solutions offers a wide range of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronic hardware products targeted at video capture, processing, display, compression, streaming, recording, video format conversion, GPGPU computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and data archival.

The graphics and video products are based on their own GPU technology as well as that from NVIDIA and AMD. All of EIZO’s rugged products, including displays, are developed in-house to ensure complete control of product quality as well as extended product life cycles.

Since 1987, EIZO Rugged has committed to providing premier products to markets including defense, avionics, aerospace, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and ATC/ATM (air traffic control/management).

Many of their products are currently deployed on several very large programs, both domestically and internationally. Whether it be a rugged monitor, customised graphics card, or a box level solution, EIZO Rugged has a great ruggedised solution for your project!

Register your attendance HERE. 

Technical Note: 300FPS Video Recording/Streaming System

Our teammates at DAVE Embedded Systems have been working hard on new applications and prototypes during lockdown. They are always striving to improve their skills and knowledge around video manipulation and camera design including Machine Learning features on their products.

This particular Technical Note illustrates a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) that DAVE Embedded Systems engineered for a customer operating in the industrial automation market. The goal was to build a prototype of a high-frame-rate video recording/streaming system.

In a typical scenario, illustrated in the following diagram, this device would be used in fast automatic manufacturing lines for two purposes:

• Remote monitoring
• Detailed off-line "post-mortem" failure analysis.

In essence, the system consists of a high-frame-rate image sensor interfaced to a Linux-based embedded platform also denoted as PP in the rest of the document. The sensor frames a specific area of the production line and sends a constant-rate flow of frames to the PP for further processing, as detailed in the following sections.

Resolution and frame rate of this stream have to be carefully determined in function of the characteristics of the scene to shoot, first and foremost the speed of moving objects framed by the sensor and its lens. In the case under discussion, the customer specified a resolution of 1280x720, a frame rate of 300 fps, and the use of a global shutter. 

Read the full Technical Note here.

VersaLogic Announces Embedded Server Available on Turnkey Evaluation Program

One of our longest running partnerships is with VersaLogic Corp. VersaLogic is a leading provider of rugged industrial computers to OEMs for embedded control and industrial control applications, and has a diverse range of form factors, processors and expansion options in their range.

VersaLogic is constantly innovating, which is great news for our UK customers who are always looking for cutting edge technology. We are very pleased to announce that their “Grizzly” 16-core embedded server product is now available as part of their Turnkey Evaluation Program loaner program, in which they offer their popular board-level products as boxed, turnkey systems, complete with an installed OS, for quick and easy testing and evaluation.

The Grizzly embedded server features an Intel 16-core processor, up to 128 GB of ECC RAM, two SFP+ 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, M.2 socket for data storage, and operation over the full -40° to +85°C industrial temperature range. The evaluation systems come pre-loaded with either Windows Server or a Linux OS, and a 250 GB solid state drive installed in the M.2 socket. SPF+ modules for 10 GbE Fibre and copper are included.


Len Crane, VersaLogic's President, points out how these eval systems can save time and effort; “These ready-to-power-up systems save a ton of time during initial testing. Just turn it on, load your software, and see how it performs. These Turnkey Eval Systems eliminate 95% of the setup required to test board-level products.”



Find out more 
The Grizzly evaluation systems are available now, and the program is very easy to access. To find out about the Grizzly, or the Turnkey Evaluation program, contact info@sarsen.net.

Source: Press Office, VersaLogic Corporation, 08/12/20

High Performance Computing Using Stratix 10 FPGA

We work with REFLEX CES to provide customers in the UK and Ireland with the latest leading-edge FPGA technologies, which now compete with CPUs and GPUs in the High Performance Computing (HPC) domain.

Their COTS boards are focused to provide the highest possible performance on the hardware side, together with the OpenCL BSP for ease-of-use on the software side.

One of the high performance computing projects REFLEX CES has been supporting is M2DC. M2DC provides significant benefits for data centres. The goal of the M2DC project is to develop a new class of low-power TCO-optimised appliances with built-in efficiency and dependability enhancements that are  easy to integrate with a broad ecosystem of management software and fully software-defined to enable optimisation for a variety of future demanding applications in a cost-effective way.

In this project, REFLEX CES developed the Stratix 10 FPGA SoC module (COMXpressSX) for acceleration (specifications, hardware development in COM Express form factor, firmware, middleware, and various Board Support Package including OpenCL), and also two types of mechanical chassis where several boards are included.

REFLEX CES product - COMXpressSX Stratix 10 board.

See more info at reflexces.com

Rugged SWaP Optimised Error-Correcting Credit Card Sized Computers

The team at VersaLogic has been very busy over lockdown, and we are excited to bring their latest offering to UK customers - a new SWaP-optimised embedded computer with error correcting (ECC) memory.

Code name “Harrier”

This brand new compact embedded computer features the latest 5^th generation Apollo Lake Atom™ processors  from Intel. Alongside error-correcting memory, the Harrier also includes a TPM 2.0 security chip, on-board power regulation, USB and Ethernet I/O ports, and Mini PCIe expansion sockets.  The soldered-on ECC RAM enhances both the reliability and ruggedness of the product, making it worthy of consideration for a range of mission critical applications.

This compact little computer is 55 x 95 x 29 mm, around the size of a credit card,  making it perfectly suited for SWaP applications such as in unmanned vehicles on land, underwater, or in the air. The Harrier is designed and tested for operation across the full industrial temperature range (-40º to +85ºC) and meets MIL-STD-202H specifications for shock and vibration. In addition, the on-board power regulation ensures reliable operation with fluctuating or noisy power sources.

READ FULL PRESS RELEASE

Masterclock Awarded FAA Contract for Airport Surveillance Radar Modernisation

Here at Sarsen we work with some pretty cool technology partners. Lucky us. One of the standout manufacturers in our portfolio is Masterclock. Their precise time and frequency solutions are used in mission critical operations around the globe.

Accolades are frequent, but their latest announcement has turned heads for all the right reasons. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has selected the Masterclock GMR1000 to be used as the primary timing source for a modernisation upgrade to airport surveillance radar systems around the USA. The FAA needed to overcome obsolescence of legacy elements critical to system operations. This, paired with the need for commercial internet protocol (IP)-based equipment capable of providing equivalent functionality triggered the significant modernisation effort.

This award is the result of an extensive validation effort to ensure the modern timing technology from Masterclock integrates perfectly into the legacy system environment.

John Clark, President and CEO of Masterclock says, “System operators around the country are being asked to extend the lifespans of critical infrastructure beyond their original design considerations and capabilities. We’re proud to have created a cost-effective and robust platform with the GMR1000 to meet these legacy and present needs.”

The Nerdy Bit

The GMR1000 is a compact master clock that can reference a variety of timing sources and provide a range of outputs including NTP, IEEE1588 PTP, IRIG-B, SMPTE, 10Mhz, 1PPS and more. 

Each GMR1000 used by the FAA will be equipped with on-board GPS reception capabilities for long-term steering and oven-compensated quartz crystal oscillators (OCXOs) to provide accurate holdover to mitigate disruptions to GPS availability while ensuring accurate timing signals continue to be delivered via Precise Time Protocol (PTP) to downstream dependent equipment during a disrupted RF environment.

GMR1000 Datasheet

Masterclock worked closely with the FAA to identify and implement a specific set of configuration parameters for the GMR1000 to in order to fully optimise the integration of the device with the other sub-systems included in the modernisation effort. 

The successful integration, evaluation, and value proposition led to a single-source announcement for the Masterclock GMR1000 as the preferred solution for the project earlier this year.

If you's like to know more about the GMR1000 or the Masterclock product line please get in touch with us - info@sarsen.net

System on Modules - FPGAs, SoCs and Development Kits

 
System-on-Modules (SoMs) are compact, embedded computers designed for integration into a range of different applications. SoM is an extension of the concept of System on Chip (SoC) and sits somewhere on the scale between a single board computer and a microcontroller in nature. SoMs are small and offer very flexible configuration options with all the I/O already on board.

Some devices also incorporate FPGA components. We work with REFLEX CES, who use their extensive FPGA experience and combine it with their embedded knowledge to create a range of SoMs based on the leading programmable System-on-Chip (SoC) processors, perfectly suited to a wide range of requirements.

These SoMs are form factor agnostic, which is ideal when you are looking to offer different carrier board or performance grade options to your customer as part of your strategy. These devices are well suited for demanding embedded applications like instrumentation and healthcare/biosciences.

The Achilles SoM from REFLEX CES features the Intel® Arria® 10 SX FGPA.

• 226 SE IOs total (113 LVDS)
• 24 transceivers @ 10Gbps
• 2x DDR4 banks up to 2400MT/s
• Industrial Temp

To really maximise the time spent on your initial design phase, REFLEX CES offers development kits specifically for their programmable SoC based SoM modules. The Achilles Instant Devkits and modules have been delivered to companies located in 20 different countries around the world, thanks to the support of its distributor partners.

The Achilles Dev Kit includes:

• Arria 10 SoM Module
• PCIe carrier board with I/Os
• VHDL test designs
• Cabling and other accessories for an ‘out of the box’ experience
• Technical documents including reference manual, mechanical drawings, 3D Step and assembly files 
• Kernel Linux & Linaro optimised distribution, 
• U-boot bootloader, Test scripts

There are many benefits to using SoM products instead of ground-up development, from increasing speed to market, reduction of risk, cost savings and the choice of a variety of CPUs, to reduced requirements and time for customer design, and the ability to conduct both hardware and software development at once.

Give us a call or send us a quick email outlining your requirements and we’ll give you a call back.

• Life Sciences • Embedded Industrial • Instrumentation • Medical • Industrial Printing Machines • Radar Systems • Artificial Intelligence • Scientific & Chemistry Instrumentation • ASIC & IP Prototyping

Rugged MIL-STD-810 Monitors for Extreme Environments

The Talon Series of COTS rugged monitors from EIZO Rugged Solutions are ready to be deployed in extreme environments, and can be customised to meet specific requirements. Be it applications for the very latest systems or retrofitting legacy systems, Talon can be tailored to suit your project.

Talon monitors are built to survive harsh environments.

• All monitors come standard with MIL-STD-810 and MIL-STD-461
• LED backlight for a long lifecycle 
• Optical bonding for improved durability and visibility 
• IP65 protection against dust and water jets

EIZO Talon Displays Brochure

All monitors come with various features to make installation easy in any setting, including standard interfaces such as 3G-SDI, DVI, RGB, USB and serial communication, as well as a 19-inch rack mounting option. Standard panel sizes of 21.5-inches and 24-inches are available, other sizes can be provided on request.

As well as easy installation, the Talon monitors come with several features that make usability super easy. Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture allows users to display multiple inputs at once, and a projected capacitive (PCAP) touchscreen option with 5-point multitouch or analog resistive touch option makes using the interface straightforward and intuitive.

For more information about the rugged Talon range please speak to one of our engineers - they know all about these products and would be very happy to discuss your application requirements...

EIZO Rugged Releases 6-channel XMC Graphics/GPGPU Card

EIZO Rugged has just announced a game-changing, all-in-one solution with the ability to capture, process, encode, decode, display, and stream video and audio data, all with exceptionally low latency.

Rugged and packed with features, it's a thing of beauty - our team is excited to talk to you about it...

Based on the NVIDIA® Quadro® P2000 GPU with NVIDIA Pascal™ architecture, the Condor NVP2102AxX card also efficiently supports CUDA and OpenCL based GPGPU computing, AI processing (artificial intelligence), deep learning and H.265/H.264 encoding/decoding, with all of the processing done in hardware.

High-speed data transfer and exceptionally low latency levels are achieved with the Condor NVP2102AxX graphics processor by optimising NVIDIA’s GPUDirect RDMA (remote direct memory access) feature. This enables the captured video data to be sent over PCIe, bypassing system memory, directly to GPU memory for analysis/processing/display, almost in real time.

In GPU memory, the applications can do processing such as image analysis, image enhancement, 360-degree video stitching, sensor fusion, and target detection using the GPGPU (CUDA/OpenCL™) technology. The card supports multiple outputs including 3G-SDI, DisplayPort and DVI.

With air or conduction cooled options available, as well as a number of input/output configurations please contact one of our engineers to discuss the correct configuration for your application.

Compact Modular RFSoC Solutions

The boundary-pushing team at Annapolis Micro Systems has taken a pioneering approach to delivering powerful RFSoC functionality. Their WILD FMC+ RFSoC Cards are compact modular solutions that operate standalone. If your application is very processing-intensive they can be paired with a WILDSTAR 3U or 6U VPX or PCIe Baseboard.

The concept behind Annapolis' RFSoC Cards is simple: to provide full RFSoC functionality in a small, flexible package that has solved the most demanding circuitry, signal integrity, and packaging challenges. No small feat.

Xilinx’s Zynq® UltraScale+™ RF System-on-Chip (RFSoC) combines multiple elements that were formerly discrete operations. In defense and military applications like C4ISR and radar, Size, Weight, Power and Cost (SWaP-C) considerations are crucial. Applications like UAVs, backpacks, handheld devices, and custom-integrated applications are increasingly subject to smaller spaces and power sources.

Following an intensive design and manufacturing process Annapolis' RFSoC cards provide turnkey solutions ready for immediate deployment within any standard OpenVPX or PCIe system, or within Annapolis’ proven 100Gb Ethernet WILD100™ EcoSystem. They are also compatible with SOSA™-aligned Boards and Systems.

If you require high-performance RFSoC-enabled data digitisation, processing or storage in a compact, rugged environment, these WILD RFSoC Cards are for you. Contact us to have an engineer recommend the best approach for your application.

©2020 Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc.

Accelerate your 5G and NFV Workloads with Intel PAC and Netcope P4

Did you know, Netcope P4 supports Intel® FPGA PAC N3000?

Netcope P4 compiles the packet processing program written in open-standard P4 language into 100 Gbps FPGA firmware, allowing unprecedented flexibility and rapid development of high-speed network applications.

Netcope P4 Flyer 

It offers a revolutionary way for programmable network adapters to be easily programmed using P4 language without expert knowledge of hardware architecture, which can significantly save money when hiring dedicated firmware designers. It also shortens time-to-market, avoiding lengthy firmware development cycles.

Using the Arria 10 FPGA, now in mass production, Intel® FPGA PAC N3000 is the platform of choice for the acceleration of many bandwidth and latency-sensitive virtualised network applications, such as vRAN, vEPC, vBNG and others. Netcope P4 brings the possibilities for this card to a whole new level. Instead of tedious and error-prone HDL coding, the card can be programmed in the open-standard P4 language.

Netcope P4 is now specifically optimised to take advantage of the N3000 unique features, offering large capacities of lookups in off-chip DDR memories and achieving line-rate packet processing with low latency and resource utilization. With Netcope P4 and N3000, your fully custom 100 Gbps packet processor built with COTS hardware is just hours away.

Sarsen Technology is Netcope's UK partner. For more information on P4 or FPGA acceleration please contact us.

Watch Video - Intel® FPGA PAC N3000

Embedded Technology Integrated into an ECG Device

Embedded electronics have never been so popular within the design of new products, especially when operators require touch screen technology for interaction and quick start operation. Based on this "mobile phone" style approach, customers in the medical market have started requesting new features for their devices, including capacitive touch screens, modern Graphical User Interfaces and Wi-Fi capabilities for remote control and monitoring.

One of the key medical areas where this technology is being utilised is in the design of ECG machines. In this app note, we look at how DAVE Embedded Systems is using their specific knowledge in this industry to design and develop a system able to support a rich and modern user experience including Wi-Fi or 4G connectivity, which provides access to the cloud through secure certificates and secure boot.

Read App Note

COVID-19 / Coronavirus Countermeasures at Sarsen Technology

Dear Customer,

Given the ongoing situation and the unprecedented guidelines being put in place by the U.K. Government to help contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), we'd like to reassure you that Sarsen Technology will continue to offer full support for your existing and potential projects, and that we are committed to helping to keep the world moving in this period of uncertainty.

Following health authorities’ recommendations, we are taking precautionary measures by suspending all non-essential employee travel. In addition, we are adopting a digital first strategy and will be moving the majority of our meetings and customer interactions online; via phone or using a wide range of conferencing facilities as required.

The majority of the Sarsen team is now working remotely to meet all your needs, and you can continue to contact individual staff members via their usual email addresses, or on our general email: info@sarsen.net.  We are also continuing to receive enquiries by phone on 01672 511166 or via our website: Contact Us

The office is currently being manned by our Managing Director, Nigel Norman, and Angela Boyce will continue to manage our shipments and general office administration during this time. Rest assured that business will continue to move forward as usual and you will not see a decrease in service or support.

The whole team is making a superb effort to ensure that an excellent level of communication is maintained between ourselves, the manufacturers we represent, and our customers during this period of uncertainty. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if we can support your projects in any way.

We hope you, your colleagues and your families stay safe and healthy over the coming weeks.

Best wishes
The Sarsen Technology Team




More Information

WHO: Coronavirus Updates

NHS: COVID-19

UK Government: Response

VersaLogic Corporation Receives AS9100 Certification

Tualatin, Oregon – February 19, 2020

Our long-standing manufacturing partner VersaLogic is one of the embedded industry’s most trusted computer companies, and today they proudly announce their AS9100D certification.

With this certification, VersaLogic surpasses their existing ISO 9001 certification, and now joins an elite group of companies also registered to this aerospace standard.

“VersaLogic is proud to announce certification of our Quality Management System to AS9100D.” says Bruce McKinnon, Chief Operating Officer. “This achievement reflects our long-standing commitment to maintaining a world-class quality management system and producing best-in-class embedded computer products. Managing product and service quality per AS9100D assures that we will continue to meet or exceed our aerospace customers’ requirements.”

Enhancing Quality and Customer Satisfaction

The audit was conducted in accordance with the requirements of SAE AS9104/1:2012-01 by PRI RegistrarSM which is accredited by ANAB and IAF.

The standard certification aims to enhance customer satisfaction, something that VersaLogic has long held at the forefront of their business. It contains requirements related to quality, safety, risk management, and evidence-based decision making – all important factors that the aerospace and defense industries demand and uphold themselves.

What's New?

The latest addition to VersaLogic's embedded product line is the Grizzly - a rugged embedded server featuring an Intel 16-core processor, -40°C to +85°C operation, two 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ ports, and up to 128 GB of ECC memory.

 It is ideal for high performance/high data bandwidth applications. Two Mini PCIe sockets and an M.2 site provide for expansion and on-board storage.

Grizzly is covered from the date of shipment by a five-year warranty against defects in materials and workmanship, and VersaLogic’s 10+ year product life support ensures long-term availability.

For more information please contact one of the engineers at Sarsen Technology.

First Public Demonstration of a SOSA-Aligned 100GbE VPX Switch

As you may have seen recently on social media and myriad industry news sites there was some very exciting technology demonstrated at the Tri-Service Open Architecture Interoperability Demonstration (TSOA-ID) on January 29 at Georgia Tech Research Institute.

TSOA-ID was the first time the three branches of United States Armed Services (Army, Navy and Air Force) were brought together with standards organisations including HOST, SOSA, CMOSS and VITA working alongside leading industry partners like Annapolis Micro Systems and Leonardo DRS to demonstrate the ease of interoperability of rugged embedded hardware and software modules.

WILDSTAR 6E10 6U VPX Switch operating in Air Force chassis
TSOA-ID Dry Run in December 2019

TSOA-ID featured the very first public demonstration of a SOSA™-aligned 100Gb Ethernet-capable VPX switch and processing board. The next-generation WILDSTAR™ 100GbE 6E10 6U OpenVPX Switch and 6XB2 6U OpenVPX FPGA module from our partners at Annapolis featured in a live conformance and interoperability demo running within a US Air Force chassis.


Alongside the 100GbE demo, Annapolis also showcased the SOSA-aligned WILDSTAR 6XBU 6U OpenVPX FPGA Processing Board, which offers ultra-wide bandwidth digitisation and processing in a single 6U VPX board. It also delivers remarkable instantaneous bandwidth: 32 GHz receive and 24 GHz transmit.

Annapolis high-performance products can be used in a wide range of applications, including advanced HPC, ISR, and multi-function EW applications, such as phased array radar, cybersecurity network processing, DRFM, beamforming, sensor processing, wireless communication, and radar signal processing.

See more Annapolis Products

Wiltshire Firm Celebrates 20 Successful Years

Cast your mind back to the turn of the millennium. Y2K was about to cause chaos, Westlife were riding high in the UK charts and a new company was about to enter the world of embedded technology.

On 4th January 2000 Sarsen Technology began life in a small office above a shop in Marlborough, Wiltshire. Unfortunately, that was before we had smart phones and digital cameras, so there is little to no evidence of the questionable fashion or hairstyles sported by the Sarsen team at the turn of the century...

Our very first order in February 2000 was from Thomson Marconi (now Thales Underwater Systems) for an Analog Devices Blacktip PCI card, and 20 years later we’re talking to some of the UK's biggest prime manufacturers about a wide range of technology; from embedded single board computers and FPGA based solutions to rugged MIL-STD-1553 hardware and high performance computing COTS technology.

It’s certainly never boring…

The portfolio of manufacturers we represent has also changed over the years. Aside from allowing us to expand our product line, our carefully selected partners have given us the opportunity to support applications in new sectors. We now successfully supply a range of solutions into markets that we had very little experience of back in 2000, including financial trading and cyber security.

Great relationships with customers, suppliers and colleagues have led to some great friendships too. Alongside the unique challenges that come with running a small business, there have been many opportunities to celebrate and share a lot of fun together over the last two decades.

We are extremely proud of our achievements over the last 20 years. Thank you to all Sarsen Technology staff, past and present, to all our loyal customers, and to the manufacturers we represent, for your highly valued support over the years.

We are really looking forward to the next exciting chapter in 2020!


Rogues Gallery **

**Not in chronological order (in case you couldn't tell)!