SOSA - Sensor Open System Architecture for C4ISR Applications

If you haven’t heard about SOSA, you’re probably not the only one, but it’s big news for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems.

SOSA, or the Sensor Open System Architecture, is a collaboration between government and industry to establish guidelines for C4ISR systems. The United States is currently spearheading SOSA development, but the intention is to encourage the use of SOSA in both government and commercial markets across the world.

Using OpenVPX as its framework, SOSA will ensure improved SWaP-C optimisation, extensive reconfiguration options and rapid technology upgrades within a wide range of applications. The fundamental objective is to give designers maximum flexibility in the initial selection of subsystems that provide sensor data collection, processing, exploitation, communication, and related functions over the full life cycle of the C4ISR system.

Annapolis Micro Systems was an early adopter of the modular open standards model for COTS product development, and is a dedicated SOSA contributor and member.


The 3XBM from Annapolis is SOSA-aligned and VITA 65-compliant.

These boards provide either one Kintex® UltraScale™ XCKU115 or Virtex® UltraScale+™ XCVU5P/XCVU7P FPGA with up to 10 GB of DDR4 DRAM, providing up to 40 GB/s of DRAM bandwidth. WM3XBM - Find Out More

A WFMC+ mezzanine I/O site with stacking support is included, alongside an on-board Zynq Quad ARM CPU and 1Gb Ethernet Switch. High-bandwidth backplane connectivity is enabled by MULTIGIG RT3 interconnects, which deliver 100Gb per Fat Pipe. The new high-density RT3 boosts VPX backplane speeds to a remarkable 25 Gbaud, without sacrificing signal integrity.

For more information please contact the Sarsen Technology Engineering Team who can answer questions about SOSA, Annapolis and any of our other high performance embedded hardware.

REFLEX CES and Sarsen Technology Announce Partnership

Sarsen Technology is pleased to announce that it has been named by REFLEX CES as sales and marketing partner for their high-speed FPGA based solutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Based in Paris, France, REFLEX CES is a well-known and trusted supplier to major OEMs across the world and is established in numerous markets such as High Frequency Trading, High Performance Computing, Government, Cyber Security and Network Acceleration.

REFLEX CES offers solutions for both evaluation and prototyping using the latest FPGA technology solutions based on Intel FPGA or Xilinx FPGA, including COTS, modified COTS, or full turnkey designs. Their FPGA boards have almost limitless applications and can be easily adapted to fulfill new projects and customers’ specifications.

REFLEX CES

XpressGX S10-FH200G
200G Stratix 10 FPGA PCIe Board

Nigel Norman, MD Sarsen Technology says, “The Sarsen Technology team has great experience in supplying and supporting Intel and Xilinx FPGA based technology solutions to demanding UK and Irish customers. We work with the leaders in the cyber security, high speed trading and telecoms infrastructure markets.  REFLEX CES has exciting and innovative FPGA boards and system level solutions that are ideal for our customer’s applications. We look forward to working closely with the REFLEX CES team to continue to grow the use of FPGA technology solutions.”

“We are delighted to work with Sarsen Technology and expand our customer base in the UK and Ireland, like many regions in the world where REFLEX CES High End FPGA boards and modules are already leading the market. We trust them with their professionalism and knowledge of high-end FPGA boards, and look forward to starting this partnership,” stated Eric Penain, Chief Business Officer of REFLEX CES.

Since their inception in 2000, REFLEX CES’ team of highly skilled engineers has been focused on designing mid-to-highly complex boards and systems, which are all supported by their significant experience in hardware, firmware, software, mechanics, CAD and signal integrity.

For more information about the new relationship and how it could benefit your application please contact Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166, or email info@sarsen.net.

For more information about REFLEX CES, please email sales@reflexces.com  or go to www.reflexces.com

BittWare Introduces Brand New Arria 10 Family of FPGA Boards

Author - Laura Biddiscombe

Arria® FPGAs and SoCs from Altera deliver optimal performance, power, and cost efficiency in the midrange.

Built on 20 nm process technology, the Arria 10 FPGAs feature industry-leading programmable logic that integrates a rich feature set of embedded peripherals, embedded high-speed transceivers, hard memory controllers, and protocol IP controllers. In addition, Arria 10 FPGAs and SoCs are the industry’s first FPGA to integrate hardened floating-point (IEEE 754-compliant) DSP blocks that deliver breakthrough floating-point performance of up to 1.5 TFLOPS. Arria 10 SoCs are also the industry’s only 20nm FPGA to integrate a dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCore™ hard processor system (HPS).

The brand new A10 board family from BittWare leverages the Arria 10 FPGAs exciting capabilities to build solid platforms in a variety of formats that support a wide range of challenging applications, such as network processing & security, compute & storage, instrumentation, test & measurement, broadcast, medical imaging, wireless infrastructure, and signals intelligence.

The A10 board family features flexible memory configurations, sophisticated clocking and timing options, QSFP28 cages that support 100Gbps (including 100GigE) optical transceivers, FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC), and support for the network-enabled Altera® SDK for OpenCL™.

BittWare’s Arria 10 GX-based boards will begin shipping in Q4 2014. Arria 10 GT and SoC versions will be available in Q1 2015. Contact Sarsen Technology for pricing and details.

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

FMC Cards available from BittWare

FPGA Mezzanine Cards (FMC) are being used to support a wide range of I/O interfaces in a variety of marketplaces and environments; from commercial spec to fully ruggedised and conduction cooled applications.

The new S5PE-F from BittWare includes an FMC site, which provides high-performance SerDes and LVDS, along with clocks, I2C, and JTAG connected to the Altera Stratix V FPGA. The site is based on the VITA 57 mezzanine standard for FPGA I/O, which allows designers to customise the S5PE-F to their individual needs with optional FMC I/O boards.

Vita 57 provides a specification describing "an I/O mezzanine module with connection to an FPGA or other device with reconfigurable I/O capability". The low profile FMC design gives you the option of which industry standard slot card, blade and motherboard form factors you want to work with, including VME, VPX, CompactPCI, and PCI, amongst others. FMC also compliments existing common low profile mezzanine technology such as PMC and XMC.

Benefits of FMC

• Technology Advantages
  With the ever increasing advances in I/O, new FMC modules can be interfaced to an existing FPGA carrier. And vice-versa - when next-generation FPGAs become available you can use your existing FMC modules with the new FPGA carrier to take advantage of the latest FPGA technology.
• Cost
  Being able to repurpose FMCs will help you reduce both your development costs and recurring costs across multiple programs. If you use a COTS FMC, like the range available from BittWare, you can make real cost savings as developers don't have to design their own boards.
• No Instructions Required
  You don't need to be an expert in standards like PCI or Serial RapidIO to use an FMC.
• Data Transfer
  To meet the demands of high-performance embedded computing, the FMC connector can support very high bandwidths. Individual signalling speeds up to 10 Gb/s are supported, with a potential overall bandwidth of 40 Gb/s between mezzanine and carrier card.

BittWare offers a range of Vita-57 FMC modules, which provide power supply and temperature monitoring as standard, and offer flexible control of clock source, sampling frequency, and calibration.

For more information please contact us on +44 1672 511166, or drop us an email - info@sarsen.net

Have a great weekend!