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.

Unrivaled Processing Performance on Rugged, Deployable Intel Xeon D Processor Boards

Since announcing their first single board computers (SBCs) based on the Intel® Xeon® D-1500 family of processors in 2015, Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) has been busy, developing an industry-leading portfolio of embedded Xeon D products that is still growing.

These embedded SBCs provide designers with feature-rich computing solutions that are equally at home in a broad range of industries and applications, from challenging industrial environments to rugged defence deployments.

Originally available with up to eight cores, the Xeon D processors from Intel are now available with support for 12 and 16 cores in a single processor. Integrated on X-ES VPX SBCs, these high-performance, low-power processors are ideally suited for a variety of applications and infrastructure, including routers, network appliances, and battlefield communications.

Xeon D is also the first Intel processor with native extended temperature support, a key requirement for many defence and aerospace applications. Xeon D processors with up to 12 cores are rated by the manufacturer for an operating temperature range of -40⁰C to 85⁰C.

Keeping pace with strong demand from the defence and aerospace sectors, X-ES continues to introduce new products and features to their Xeon® D lineup. Their talented design engineering team draws upon an impressive breadth of experience with this architecture to minimise risk for even the most challenging designs.

There are a number of configurations available, including 3U VPX, 6U VPX, and COM Express form factors. For more information please contact Christos or Nigel who can discuss your application with you in detail.

Obsolescence Management for Rugged, Embedded Computers

We are fortunate to work with a lot of really great companies across the entire globe, and Extreme Engineering is one of the best.

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) is a world leader in the design, manufacture, and support of embedded computing solutions for compute-intensive military, communications, commercial, and industrial applications, provides a product portfolio of commercial-grade to fully ruggedised boards and systems.

The X-ES product line features the very latest in Xilinx FPGA, ARM Cortex, Intel i7 technology and NXP PowerPC processors. SBCs from X-ES are available in a number of form factors - 3U and 6U rugged VPX boards, XMC, VME, CompactPCI and 6U LRM.

See more - XES Products

Their specialty is custom services, from modified COTS to full-scale custom designs, getting you the technology you need in the shortest possible time frame. All of X-ES' products are backed by the best possible customer support, from both X-ES and their global distribution network, and they are committed to providing full life cycle support for their products.

To provide customers with information, flexibility, and control over the products they depend on, X-ES offers three configuration and obsolescence management options.

Level 1 - Change Notice	Level 2 - Change Control	Level 3 - Life Cycle Control
All customers have access to a complimentary Change Notice. Any time a Major (Class I) Engineering Change Order (ECO) occurs, X-ES will issue a Product Change Notification (PCN) and then post it to the X-ES online customer information resource, SupportNet. To be automatically notified of such changes, customers may also subscribe to email notifications of updates to SupportNet.	For customers who need to closely manage changes to their product’s design, X-ES offers Change Control. Under this upgraded configuration management option, designated customer contacts will receive notification for all Major (Class I) ECOs. They then have the option to accept or reject those changes.	Life Cycle Control includes configuration and obsolescence management, ideal for customers with long project lifecycles. Along with the Change Control configuration management offered in Level 2, X-ES proactively monitors obsolescence notification sources and issues an obsolescence notification form to designated customer contacts. Life Cycle Control provides options to lengthen the life of projects as products age and their components reach End-of-Life (EOL). When an obsolescence notification is issued, X-ES provides an impact assessment, along with details for last-time buys of components, substitute components, and product replacements/ re-designs as appropriate, thus ensuring product availability for several years to come.

For more information please contact Sarsen to discuss your application with one of our engineers.

BittWare's 6U VPX Channelizer System Receives Primetime Choices Award

BittWare's 6U VPX Channelizer System is a serious bit of kit.

Featuring the powerful BittWare S5-6U-VPX (S56X) FPGA COTS board and with complete software support, the system is supplied tested and configured meaning the development time is seriously reduced - perfect for time-critical applications.
The system functions as a complete development and testing platform, ideally suited to a wide variety of applications, including satellite communications, radar, and electronic warfare.

You might have seen the 6U VPX Channelizer System on the web recently - it has been all over the news after it was chosen as a Primetime Choices product by the editors of VITA Technologies.

A Word from BittWare
“We are very pleased that VITA Technologies has recognized BittWare’s Channelizer System as a Primetime Choice Product,” stated Darren Taylor, BittWare Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Marketing. “BittWare’s goal is to make life easier for our customers. Our Channelizer System does just that, giving our customers access to two Altera Stratix V FPGAs, an ARM Corex-A8 control processor, ADC, DAC, and a 6U VPX rear transition module for access to VPX I/O. All of this is fully integrated with superior software tools for a very seamless design process.”

Lets Get Technical
The single slot 2U VPX system features BittWare’s S5-6U-VPX (S56X) FPGA COTS board, which utilises high-density Altera Stratix V GX or GS FPGAs and two VITA 57 FMCs (FPGA Mezzanine Cards) with direct data connections to the on-board FPGAs.

An ARM Cortex-A8 handles the control plane, and an S56X rear transition module is included to provide rear panel I/O access, including 8 QSFP connectors for high-speed serial access, along with SFP, PCIe, GigE, SATA, JTAG, and LVDS.

With complete software support including BittWare’s ATLANTiS FrameWork, which enables reconfigurable data routing, the development system allows users to design and debug in a flexible environment. Hardware-in-the-loop support for Simulink provides an additional layer of flexibility, allowing rapid control prototyping and other real-time testing.

How Do I Get One of Those??
The 6U VPX Channelizer System (VRDP-CH) is available now. For more information please contact the Sarsen Technology team on +44 1672 511166, or send us an email - info@sarsen.net

BittWare 6U VPX Platform for Electronic Warfare and Radar Applications

BittWare’s EW & Radar Development System is a complete development and testing platform specifically designed for, you guessed it, electronic warfare and radar applications.

The single-slot OpenVPX system includes a BittWare Stratix V FPGA-based 6U VPX board along with a rear transition module for convenient I/O access, and arrives tested and configured, speeding up the development process for time-critical applications.

The platform includes:

• 19” 2U rackmount enclosure
• 1-slot backplane
• BittWare Stratix V FPGA-based 6U VPX board
• 4-channel, up to 5 GSPS, 8-bit ADC
• 2-channel, 5.6 GSPS, 14-bit DAC
• 6U VPX rear transition module for access to VPX I/O
• BittWorks II Development Tools

It also includes two VITA-57 FMCs for high bandwidth data transfer to and from the FPGAs on the S56X board. An ADC FMC provides 1, 2, or 4 8-bit A/D channels at up to 5 GSPS, directly to one of the S56X FPGAs. A DAC FMC provides 2 14-bit D/A channels at 5.6 GSPS, directly to the second FPGA on the S56X.

The BittWare EW & Radar Development System will be available for demos in the UK from mid-November. Please contact us if you would like to see the system put through its paces!

Email - info@sarsen.net 
Tel - +44 1672 511166

X-ES Announces 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Support Across Seven Industry Standard Form Factors

It's official. You heard it here first....

Our friends at Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc. (X-ES) have introduced their new family of SBCs based on the 4th generation Intel® Core™ i7-4700EQ processor (formerly codenamed "Haswell").

We are all very excited about this news, as the 4th Gen Intel Core i7 processor has some serious advantages, including increased raw processing performance per watt, hardware-based memory encryption with Intel® AES New Instructions (AES-NI), and increased floating-point and integer performance utilising Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 2.0 (AVX 2.0). The GPU has also been enhanced, adding additional execution units and up to a 24% increase in raw performance.

If that isn't enough for you, the 4th generation Intel Core i7 processor also supports OpenCL 1.2, allowing it to perform as a general-purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU).

One size doesn't fit all...
Variety is the spice of life, so X-ES has incorporated the new Intel Core i7 processor on a range of form factors, including 3U VPX, 6U VPX, XMC, 3U CompactPCI, 6U CompactPCI, 6U VME, and COM Express. The new line up of conduction and air-cooled 4th generation Intel Core i7 products from X-ES includes the XCalibur4500 6U cPCI, the XCalibur4530 6U VME, and the XCalibur4540 6U VPX modules, which maximise I/O capabilities and add configurability with two PMC/XMC sites.

They have also introduced the XPedite7570 3U VPX and XPedite7530 3U cPCI modules - ideal for space constrained aerospace and vehicle platforms that require maximum processing performance and I/O capabilities, with the flexibility of PMC and XMC support. For applications with extreme size, weight, and power (SWaP) challenges X-ES also offers the XPedite7501 XMC and XPedite7550 Rugged COM Express modules.

XCalibur4530 from X-ES

For more information about the new boards from X-ES, featuring the 4th Generation Intel Core i7 processor, please give us a call on +44 1672 511166, or email the sales team at sales@sarsen.net

Whats new? Intel Core i7 and Freescale based Embedded SBCs from Extreme Engineering!

In the last 3 months, Extreme Engineering has released a host of brand new boards. From COMe to VPX, they offer solutions for a variety of applications.
 
The XPand6104 is a natural convection cooled small form factor system supporting the XPedite7450 Intel® Core™ i7 processor rugged COM Express module. An Ethernet port, two serial ports, a USB port, graphics port, and a SATA port from the XPedite7450 are brought out to standard commercial connectors on the front panel.

XPand6104

The XCalibur4440 is a high-performance, 6U VPX, multiprocessing, single board computer that is ideal for ruggedized systems requiring high bandwidth processing and low power consumption. Supporting 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7 processors and 3rd generation Intel Core i7 processors the XCalibur4440 delivers enhanced performance and efficiency for today's network information processing and embedded computing applications.

XCalibur4440

The XPedite5650 is a ruggedized COM Express mini module (55 mm x 84 mm) that supports an enhanced Type 10 pinout. With four PowerPC e500mc cores running at up to 1.5 GHz, the P2041 delivers enhanced performance and efficiency for today's network information processing and other embedded computing applications. There are plenty of I/O ports, including one copper Gigabit Ethernet port, a single x2 PCIe port, two x1 PCIe ports, two USB 2.0 ports and two SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports.

XPedite5650

The XCalibur4402 is a high-performance, 6U CompactPCI, multiprocessing, single board computer, supporting Supports 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7 processors and 3rd generation Intel Core i7 processors. The XCalibur4402 provides up to 16 GB of DDR3-1600 ECC SDRAM in two channels, two PrPMC/PrXMC slots, 32 MB of NOR flash, and up to 128 GB of NAND flash. 

XCalibur4402

X-ES offers the widest range of commercial and ruggedized 3rd Gen Intel Core i7 processor solutions for embedded applications. As the UK distributor for X-ES we can help with any questions you may have.

Please give us a call on +44 1672 511166 to discuss your application, or email us!