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.

Conduant Corp | Adding a Conduant StreamStor® Recorder to a Xilinx FPGA Board

Conduant has written an easy to digest app note (with pictures) discussing the significant benefits of adding one of their StreamStor-based Cobra recorders to a Xilinx FPGA module. 

Why Should I Read It?

Xilinx FPGAs are used on a wide variety of boards with PCI Express and optical interfaces that can be used for a wide range of user-defined applications. Some of these applications may produce a high-speed stream of data to be recorded while others may require the injection of a continuous-speed data stream.

Conduant's Cobra Recorder/Player is designed to record and/or play back real-time data streams and is capable of sustaining very high data rates. It is easily optically interfaced with many different Xilinx boards and is the perfect companion product where this capability is needed.

Conduant StreamStor® can record or play back real-time data streams at rates up to 20 GB/s (160 Gb/s or 1 Terabyte every 50 seconds) regardless of the type of data (RF, RADAR, imaging, etc.). This application note focuses on the optical connection. Since StreamStor® products are designed with Xilinx FPGAs, they are highly configurable and easily interface with Xilinx development boards or other Xilinx-based designs.

Almost any Xilinx development board that has high-speed serial optical lanes can connect with StreamStor® using one of many different protocols (Aurora, Interlaken, Serial RapidIO, etc.).

Ok, Tell Me More...

This application note will show:

• It is easy to add a StreamStor® recorder/player to a Xilinx board.
• A method of adjusting between endpoints of different lane widths.
• A method of adjusting between transceivers of different types. 

About

App Note written by Phil Brunelle, Conduant Corp. Nov 5, 2019.

Founded in 1996 as Boulder Instruments, Conduant has quickly become a leader in ultra-fast, long-duration digital recording and playback systems. Conduant Corporation designs and manufactures real-time, long-duration digital recording and playback systems. In environments where large volumes of high-speed data are generated (e.g. radio astronomy, video imaging, radar, electronic surveillance), Conduant's StreamStor® products excel at error-free recording and playback

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.

Supporting Military FPGA Requirements in the UK

Sarsen Technology provides a wide range of rugged COTS boards and system solutions to the leading European Defense manufacturers. We have a long track record of supporting mission critical systems for land, sea & air, and we understand the importance of both process control and long-term support.

Our military customers require rugged solutions that are designed for harsh environmental conditions such as heat or cold, altitude, humidity, shock and vibration. Often the solutions we supply must be able to fit into space-constrained platforms and we can offer custom systems to suit. Also key is fast time to market, low risk, flexibility and long product life cycle. Many of the products we supply and support have industry-leading product life cycles and warranties as standard.

Our product lines include:

• MIL-STD-1553 Hardware
• Rugged VPX and COM Express Boards
• Cyber security boards and technology
• 19” Rackmount Systems
• FPGA boards based on Xilinx and Intel, including rugged Xilinx Zynq boards.

We have recently joined forces with REFLEX CES to provide their high-speed FPGA based solutions to customers in the UK and Ireland.

COMXpress Stratix® 10 SoC

REFLEX CES' designs are based around FPGA boards and firmware development, CPU and embedded software/OS, Analog and RF portions, as well as mechanical parts and custom chassis.
This combination of high performance deliverables results in rugged systems designed for harsh environmental constraints including ESD, temperature, humidity, shock and vibration. These FPGA based solutions can be combined with x86 CPU architecture or similar inside a turnkey form factor.

For more information please contact one of our engineers to discuss your requirements.

Sarsen Technology and Annapolis Micro Systems Announce Partnership

Annapolis Micro Systems Announces the Appointment of Sarsen Technology Ltd as its Exclusive Distributor in the UK and Ireland

Sarsen Technology is pleased to announce that it has been named by Annapolis Micro Systems as their exclusive sales and marketing partner in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Based in Maryland, USA, Annapolis Micro Systems designs, manufactures, and programs high-performance COTS and modified COTS FPGA-based boards and systems for challenging data acquisition, digital signal processing, and data storage applications. Their designs maximise FPGA real estate and available pins per package to yield maximum performance as well as being rugged and reliable, meeting harsh environmental requirements.

Find Out More about Annapolis

Nigel Norman, MD Sarsen Technology says, “With the addition of Annapolis to the product line Sarsen Technology is now positioned as a leading supplier of embedded COTS technology to all of the UK Mil/Aero primes.  Our key customers have been asking us for new and innovative FPGA solutions for synthetic aperture radar, software defined radio and signal intelligence applications.  The new generation of Xilinx RFSoC FPGA devices is especially exciting.  Annapolis Micro Systems has the design and manufacturing expertise to meet the technology needs of our most demanding customer applications.”

“Due to the Sarsen relationship, the UK and Ireland are poised to become our largest market outside North America,” says Noah Donaldson, Annapolis Micro Systems Chief Technology Officer. “Our partnership with Sarsen gives our UK and Ireland customers an experienced and knowledgeable local liaison for providing responsive technical service and support.”

Since their inception in 1982, Annapolis Micro Systems has become a leader in reconfigurable computing systems. Their products are designed for advanced HPC, ISR, and multi-function EW applications, including phased array radar, cybersecurity network processing, DRFM, beamforming, sensor processing, wireless communication, and radar signal processing.

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

Brand New Small Form Factor (SFF) System Features 10 Gb/s Optical Links for High-Bandwidth Embedded Computing

The latest 3U VPX embedded system from Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) sets a new standard for high-bandwidth data acquisition and signal processing in harsh environments.

With multiple high-speed optical links, an Intel® Xeon® D-1500 processor, and a Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA, the XPand6215 offers uncompromising performance and reliability in a SWaP-optimised two-slot system.

High-Speed, Fibre Optic Communications
The XPand6215 is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) rugged chassis hosting two conduction-cooled 3U VPX modules. One slot contains the XPedite2570, a reconfigurable fibre-optic I/O module based on the Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ family of FPGAs.

The XPedite2570 supplies 12 protocol-independent optical transceivers operating at up to 10.3125 Gb/s, along with 8 GB of DDR4 ECC SDRAM in two channels capable of up to 38 GB/s aggregate bandwidth. The transceivers utilise 50/125 μm multi-mode fibre with MT connectors and are qualified over the full -40°C to +85°C industrial temperature range for reliable performance in extreme environments.

These optical links are paired with a user-programmable Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA, which provides a blend of performance and cost-effectiveness that is ideal for packet processing and DSP-intensive processing in embedded applications.

Unparalleled, Multi-Core Processing Power
The other slot of the XPand6215 contains the XPedite7670, a 3U VPX Single Board Computer based on the Intel® Xeon® D-1500 family of processors (formerly Broadwell-DE). Available with up to 16 Xeon®-class cores in a single, power-efficient System-on-Chip (SoC) package, this processor puts the XPand6215 in the upper echelon of embedded system performance. Xeon® D processors with up to 12 cores offer native extended temperature support with an operating temperature range of -40⁰C to +85⁰C.

The XPedite7670 also provides up to 16 GB of DDR4-2133 ECC SDRAM, while an XPort3305 10 Gigabit Ethernet XMC module installed on the XPedite7670 provides a rugged 10GBASE-SR Ethernet port.

Industry-Leading Functional Density in a Small Form Factor (SFF) Enclosure
The XPand6215 makes the most of every pound and square inch, packing maximum functionality into a streamlined two-slot design. Its integrated 28 VDC power supply eliminates the need for an additional power supply slot. It also includes a memory bay for a removable 2.5 in. solid-state drive (SSD), adding the option for up to 1 TB of storage. Fully loaded, the system weighs approximately 4kg, making it ideal for cutting-edge military and industrial applications that require small, lightweight solutions.

Qualified to the MIL-STD-461E/F, MIL-STD-810, and MIL-STD-704F standards, the XPand6215 has passed a battery of tests to ensure reliable operation in even the most challenging environments.

The XPand6200 Series of rugged, embedded systems are available in a diverse range of configurations, making them uniquely-suited to a variety of processing-intensive applications.

Please contact Sarsen Technology to discuss your requirements.

We Take a Look at the Xilinx RFSoC

Way back in October 2017 Xilinx announced the delivery of their Zynq® UltraScale+™ RFSoC family. We've recently seen an upturn of enquiries about these devices, and with the Early Access/ silicon samples phase out of the way customers are very excited about the potential this technology can offer.

Photo: Xilinx.com

To create the RFSoCs, Xilinx built the analog directly into the popular MPSoC Zynq device, in the form of  high performance ADCs and DACs that feed directly into the Zynq interconnect fabric.

This means that the physical footprint and chip-to-chip latency is greatly reduced, and it also completely removes the external digital interfaces between the FPGA itself and the mixed-signal convertors.

Putting this RF quality analog function on an MPSoC opens up the playing field for a wide range of  commercial applications including test & measurement and high performance RF applications, with 5G wireless deployment right at the top of the list.

As SWaP is such a critical set of factors for the majority of defence applications military customers also benefit because the Zynq RFSoCs provide a combination of power efficiency, hardware flexibility and a reduction in required space, making them ideal for radar, early warning detection systems and man-portable communications equipment.

Based on 16nm UltraScale+ MPSoC architecture with an ARM Cortex-A53 processing subsystem and the highest signal processing bandwidth in a Zynq UltraScale+ device, the All Programmable RFSoCs monolithically integrate RF data converters for up to 50-75 percent system power and footprint reduction, and soft-decision Forward Error Correction (SD-FEC) cores to meet 5G and DOCSIS 3.1 standards.

There are now a number of proven Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC solutions available on the market. Please get in touch if you'd like to discuss an application with one of our engineers - info@sarsen.net or +44 1672 511166.

www.sarsen.net

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.

Extreme Engineering Releases 3U VPX Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGA Module

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) introduces the XPedite2570, a rugged FPGA processing module with a high-speed optical front-end interface. Equipped with an integrated Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA, the XPedite2570 optimises both cost and performance for high-bandwidth embedded computing applications.

XPedite2570 Datasheet

Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA Delivers Great Performance Without Great Cost
The XPedite2570 is a high-performance, conduction-cooled 3U VPX FPGA processing module based on the Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ XCKU115 FPGA.

The Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ family of FPGAs provides the best price/performance/watt at 20nm, as well as the highest signal processing bandwidth for a mid-range device.

Ideal for programs that need to optimise both cost and capability, the Kintex® UltraScale™ XCKU115 packs over 1.4 M system logic cells, 5,520 DSP slices, and 75.9 Mb of block RAM into a cost-effective package. It also provides a straightforward upgrade path for legacy systems, offering up to 40% power savings compared to the previous generation of FPGAs.


Optimised for High-Bandwidth Applications
The XPedite2570 is a reconfigurable FPGA resource designed to meet the demands of high-bandwidth applications such as packet processing, signal processing, and DSP-intensive applications. It features 12 rugged, protocol-independent fiber optic transceivers operating at up to 10.3125 Gb/s, along with 8 GB of DDR4 ECC SDRAM in two independent channels capable of up to 38 GB/s aggregate bandwidth. The XPedite2570 has several options for high-performance backplane I/O, including a x8 Gen3 PCI Express interface, dual GTH transceivers with a maximum data rate of 16.375 Gb/s, and up to 44 LVDS transceivers for user I/O.

X-ES’ board support package for the XPedite2570 includes an FPGA Development Kit for Xilinx Vivado complete with a reference design, IP Integrator IP blocks, HDL, test benches, and Linux drivers, so developers can jump right into application development without having to work through hardware integration issues.

Build a Rugged COTS System with Compatible X-ES Products
For lower development costs and faster deployment, pair the XPedite2570 with a 3U VPX single board computer (SBC) and install them together in the XPand6215, a Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) rugged system designed to meet the rigorous standards of MIL-STD-704F and MIL-STD-461. The XPand6215 can support several embedded single board computers from the XPedite767x product line, such as the XPedite7670. This family of high-performance SBCs is based on the Intel® Xeon® D processor, which provides up to 16 Xeon®-class cores in a single, power-efficient System-on-Chip (SoC) package.

More about Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES)

BittWare Announces SmartNIC Shell for Building FPGA-powered 100G NICs

SmartNIC Shell Supports DPDK, Xilinx SDNet, P4 Programming, User Customisations, and Timestamping

BittWare has announced SmartNIC Shell, a suite of IP modules for building 100G network interface controllers (NICs) using FPGAs for hardware packet processing.

Users can fully customise Shell components, including a Match/Action pipeline with features including Xilinx SDNet support and the P4 network programming language. For host application interaction the Arkville DPDK IP is integrated for kernel bypass. SmartNIC Shell allows teams to avoid the time-consuming process of building core NIC functions into an FPGA, allowing them to focus resources on their own application.

Read more - Full Press Release

“We built the SmartNIC Shell because we noticed that many of our customers spend half their development time creating a networking shell,” said Craig Lund, Vice-President Network Products, BittWare. “All of that development time should be going into their own product’s unique value instead.”


SmartNIC Shell Top Features

Quickly Build 100G NICs	Focus your attention on your unique application, instead of re-inventing a NIC.
Match/Action Pipeline	Standardised kernel bypass for host interaction over PCIe. SmartNIC Shell provides DPDK offload to interact with host applications.
TimeServo Timestamping	Precision time stamping including 1588-compatible clock adjustments. Uses TimeServo IP from Atomic Rules
Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGA	Large, powerful FPGAs with ample room for user IP. Selection of BittWare boards including traditional low-profile NIC size (XUPPL4) to 3/4-length boards with additional logic and memory options (XUPP3R).

For more information please contact the Sarsen FPGA team on +44 1672 511166 or send us an email - info@sarsen.net

Swindon FPGA Meetup - 18th July 2017

Swindon FPGA Meetup Group

The aim of the Swindon FPGA Meetup is to provide a forum where people based in the Swindon area who have an active interest in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology can get together to discuss industry developments in hardware & software tools, verification, architectures, simulation, verification and test.

We aim to connect local Engineers and Technologists who are working in the electronics industry and using FPGAs in their projects and applications. Rather than selling solutions, we want to share our industry knowledge and experience to further our collective technical expertise.

The first meetup is scheduled for Tuesday, July 18th at The Plough on the Hill near Swindon, and the organisers will provide food and a beer.

If there are any topics you would like to discuss please join the Swindon FPGA Group on Meetup.

Swindon FPGA Meetup Group - Event Details

Please get in touch for more information. We look forward to seeing you there!

In Review: Xilinx SDSoC and Levels of Abstraction

The SDSoC development environment from Xilinx provides engineers and developers using Zynq SoC and MPSoC with a familiar C/C++ design environment, including a straightforward Eclipse IDE, expanded library, board, and design services ecosystem support.

In a recent article posted on the Xilinx blog, Part 196 of Adam Taylor's MicroZed Chronicles takes a good look at what SDSoC is, how it works and the benefits gained from using it.

Adam Taylor’s MicroZed Chronicles, Part 196: SDSoC and Levels of Abstraction

Originally posted by Xilinx Employee sleibso ‎05-22-2017 09:40 AM - edited ‎05-22-2017 10:28 AM 
Re-posted with permission.

We have looked at SDSoC several times throughout this series, however I recently organized and presented at the NMI FPGA Machine Vision event and during the coffee breaks and lunch, attendees showed considerable interest in SDSoC - not only for its use in the Xilinx reVISION acceleration stack but also its use in a range of over developments. As such, I thought it would be worth some time looking at what SDSoC is and the benefits we have previously gained using it. I also want to discuss a new use case.

SDSoC Development Environment

SDSoC is an Eclipse-based, system-optimizing compiler that allows us to develop our Zynq SoC or Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC design in its entirety using C or C++. We can then profile the application to find aspects that cause performance bottlenecks and move then into the Zynq device’s Programmable Logic (PL). SDSoC does this using HLS (High Level Synthesis) and a connectivity framework that’s transparent to the user. What this means is that we are able develop at a higher level of abstraction and hence reduce the time to market of the product or demonstration.

To do this, SDSoC needs a hardware platform, which can be pre-defined or custom. Typically, these platforms within the PL provide the basics: I/O interfaces and DMA transfers to and from Zynq device’s PS’ (Processing System’s) DDR SDRAM. This frees up most the PL resources and PL/PS interconnects to be used by SDSoC when it accelerates functions.

This ability to develop at a higher level and accelerate performance by moving functions into the PL enables us to produce very flexible and responsive systems. This blog has previously looked at acceleration examples including AES encryption, matrix multiplication, and FIR Filters. The reduction in execution time has been significant in these cases. Here’s a table of these previously discussed examples:

For more information on Xilinx Zynq MPSoC based hardware, the SDSoC environment or embedded computing in general please get in touch with the knowledgeable team at Sarsen Technology - info@sarsen.net

ISC High Performance 2017 - Meet with BittWare and Sarsen Technology

Event: ISC 2017
Date: Sunday 18 June - Thursday 22nd June
Location: Frankfurst, Germany
Stand: A-1431

ISC High Performance is an international event for academic, industrial and commercial disciplines to come together and share ideas and knowledge across the entire high performance computing spectrum.

The 2017 conference offers 3 days of speakers and seminars based around this years focus topics:

HPC Systems	HPC Applications & Algorithms	HPC Trends & Challenges
Exascale System Developments (Architecture & Concepts)	Life Sciences	High Performance Visualization
Processor Technologies for HPC and AI	Energy Exploration	Big Data Experiments & Big Data Analysis
Memory Outlook	Turbulences & Combustion	Quantum Annealing for Combinatorial Optimization Problems
Interconnects for HPC Systems	Advanced Material Science
Programming Models (Concepts for Exascale)	Algorithms for Extreme Scale in Practice
	Large Scale Engineering & Cloud Computing

Sarsen Technology works with BittWare to provide customers with high-performance FPGA solutions based on Intel Stratix 10/Arria 10 and Xilinx UltraScale/UltraScale+ FPGAs, for data centres, network packet processing and cyber security applications.

Sarsen Technology is exhibiting at ISC 2017 alongside BittWare and EMG2, you can find us at stand A1431. BittWare’s range of Intel and Xilinx FPGA PCIe boards will be on display, along with live demos including Deep Learning with their OpenCL Board Support Package and 100 GbE packet processing with Intel’s DPDK.

For more information please contact Sarsen Technology.

ONYX-HD: High Performance Embedded Computing Platform for Video Imaging and Situation Awareness

Pre-Qualified Multi-Mission Rugged Computer

 
The ONYX family from Ecrin Systems is based on leading edge multi-core Intel® Core™ i7  processing capabilities to support a wide variety of mission requirements. Pre-Qualified MIL-STD-810/461/1275/DO-160 and in a lightweight, conduction cooled chassis the ONYX is an ideal choice for space constrained applications and harsh environmental conditions.

ONYX-HD is unique: instead of the traditional, expensive multi-slot VPX architecture, ONYX is built around a scalable and rugged multi-Core COM Express module operating between -40°C/+71°C.

It pairs cutting edge heterogeneous system architecture with an Intel multi-core i7 and Xilinx Kintex 7 FPGA capture engine. This set up combined with the latest generation AMD E8860 GPU, dedicated to parallel image computing, means the ONYX HD comfortably meets a wide variety of civilian and military requirements needing advanced Augmented Reality features, including video and data management, digital maps, tactical video overlays and mission management systems.

In a departure from the original ONYX system there is no XMC I/O module limited to PCIe 8Xlinks, but a high performance GPGPU dedicated MXC mezzanine with PCIe 16X Gen 2 links offering up to 8 GB/s bandwidth and a large choice of Digital and Analogic I/O video formats, from legacy STANAG up to new generation HD-SDI and 3G-SDI.
The added H.264 compression via Quick Sync from Core i7 means ONYX-HD is perfectly designed for UAVs or helicopter HD Video situation awareness missions.

See Datasheet

Details:

INTEL Multi-Core i7 + KINTEX 7 + AMD E8860 with up to 768 GFLOPS GPGPU engine	PMC and mini PCI Express sites for flexible I/O expansion and Wireless functions
2 x HD-SDI inputs SMPTE-292M, 1920x1080p30	Cable-free, Fanless, MIL-DTL-38999 connectors
2 x simultaneous HD-SDI outputs SMPTE-292M, 1920x1080p30	Real cold start at -40°C and up to +71°C Operating Temp (depends on configuration and cooling system)
2 x Analog NTSC/PAL inputs for legacy sensors	Standard BOM Qualified DO-160F and MIL-STD-810G/461F/1275D/704
1 x VGA + 1x DVI-D Single Link (Intel HD Graphic)	IP-67 Ingress
H.264/AVC video Encoding with streaming capabilities	ITAR free without Export Control
Linux Metadata Extraction/Insertion	Only 80 Watts Power consumption
Embedded EGNOS-capable GPS	High flexibility to Modified COST services

For more information please contact Sarsen Technology - +44 1672 511122

BittWare Acquires nCk Research and Forms Network Products Group

BittWare has announced the acquisition of nCk Research, a network solutions provider with a portfolio of FPGA intellectual property (IP) designed for BittWare’s PCIe boards.

nCk’s staff joined BittWare as employees under a newly-formed Network Products group. Craig Lund, formerly with CSPI-Myricom, will lead BittWare Network Products as V.P. and General Manager.

www.bittware.net


The new group’s first product, based on nCk’s groundbreaking IP, was recently announced at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. The StreamSleuth is a network packet processing appliance, providing Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGA-based accelerated monitoring, filtering, and routing at 100 GbE line rate.

“Building on the recent success of our horizontally-focused FPGA Platform business and the acquisition of nCk, it is huge step for BittWare to launch a vertically-focused network solutions group,” said Jeff Milrod, President & CEO of BittWare. “The addition of Craig’s leadership and extensive history of successfully driving new technology into emerging markets makes me confident that we will be able to quickly combine our world-class FPGA platforms with our innovative IP to deliver compelling network products to a market desperate for 100 GbE solutions.”

nCk Research had initially chosen BittWare’s FPGA solutions for prototyping their 100 Gbit/s IP. The unique approach and features of the IP so impressed BittWare that a collaboration was formed to accelerate the product development time. This grew into a need for closer access to BittWare’s software and hardware engineering teams, resulting in the acquisition in the second half of 2016.

Craig Lund joined BittWare in January, 2017 as V.P. and General Manager of the newly-formed Network Products group. Craig’s extensive knowledge of the capabilities—and limitations—of today’s high-speed network hardware and software plus his decades of experience leading teams in product development ensures the products BittWare creates are a match for the real-world needs of sophisticated, high-end network users.

BittWorks II Toolkit - Is it Even Necessary for my FPGA Development?

What is a Software Toolkit? 
Putting it simply, a software development toolkit is a set of tools that provides an interface between a hardware platform and a host system. Toolkits are critical if you want fast time to market. This is especially important for BittWare customers...

Why do I Need One?
BittWare has leveraged years of experience to provide a solid base for developers to make a start on their application, and the Toolkit has been an integral part of existing customer's success. They have been able to see first hand the value of the BittWorks tools, because they are so critical in getting projects up and running quickly. This software allows BittWare to properly support our customers.

More: BittWorks Toolkit

The BittWorks II Toolkit is a suite of development tools for BittWare’s FPGA-based hardware. The Toolkit includes drivers, libraries, utilities, and example projects for accessing, integrating, and developing applications for the BittWare board. Utilities and drivers connect the board to the host via PCIe, USB, Ethernet, or serial port, and provide easy access to the board’s system monitoring features and Flash programming.

Extensive libraries provide a consistent, intuitive API for integrating the board into the system and example projects illustrate data movement and provide a starting point for development. The Toolkit supports 64-bit Windows and Linux platforms and is tightly integrated with BittWare’s FPGA Development Kit (FDK), which provides FPGA board support IP and integration for BittWare’s FPGA-based boards.

The Nerdy Stuff
The BittWorks II datasheet is a great tool and clearly outlines what is provided and how it can help you get your application up and running quickly.

View Datasheet

Do I Need To Pay For It?
Well, yes. But BittWare doesn't currently charge for support (unlike some of the other board manufacturers in this market space) and this is only possible because of the development tools available. If a developer has the BittWorks Toolkit BittWare are able to provide the utilities they need to use the board as well as provide known working examples for the customers to leverage.

Toolkit licenses are handled per project/per location.  For a single project at one location there is a maximum of 3 licenses to be purchased. This means is that if there are 10 developers working on Project X you only need to buy 3 licenses.

Tell Me More...
If you'd like more information on how the BittWorks Toolkit and FDK can help speed up your development on both Intel (Altera) and Xilinx FPGA based hardware please get in touch with one of our specialists: info@sarsen.net

Intel® Xeon® D 3U VPX Single Board Computers with Integrated Security FPGAs Now Available

September 2016

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) has announced two new 3U VPX embedded single board computers based on the Intel® Xeon® D-1500 processor family. These powerful boards support up to 16 Xeon®-class cores in a single, power-efficient System-on-Chip (SoC) package with native extended temperature support on four, eight, and twelve core-count SKUs.

XPedite7674

The XPedite7674 is an Intel® Xeon® D-1500 processor-based 3U VPX single board computer that can support up to 16 core-count SKUs with native extended temperature support on up to 12 core-count SKUs.

With an integrated, user-configurable, Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA module delivering enhanced performance and security for a wide range of embedded computing applications, the board supports a variety of I/O to the VPX connectors, including dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GBASE-KR), SATA port capable of 6 Gb/s, USB 2.0, and RS-232/422/485 serial ports.

The FPGA also provides GPIO, 1000BASE-X Gigabit Ethernet, and High-Speed Serial ports to the VPX connectors. The XMC site supports a x8 PCI Express Gen3-capable port and a SATA port, as well as XMC P16 I/O, mapping P1w9-X12d per VITA 46.9.

XPedite7676

The XPedite7676 is a secure, Intel® Xeon® D-1500 processor-based 3U VPX single board computer
that can support up to 16 core-count SKUs with native extended temperature support on up to 12 core-count SKUs.

The XPedite7676 integrates SecureCOTS™ technology with a Microsemi SmartFusion®2 security System-on-Chip (SoC) for hosting custom functions to protect data from being modified or observed and provides an ideal solution when stringent security capabilities are required.

Dual 10GBASE-KR 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, SATA ports capable of 6 Gb/s, RS-232/422/485 serial, dual x4 PCI Express Gen3, and GPIO are all routed to the backplane VPX connectors.



Both the XPedite7674 and the XPedite7676 support the Wind River VxWorks Board Support Package (BSP), coreboot firmware powered by Intel® FSP to enable rapid and reliable sub-2.5 second boot times, and the X-ES Enterprise Linux (XEL) BSP.

Join us at the next FPGA Network meet-up on Tuesday 11th October in Swindon!

FPGA experts who care about tools and methodologies can’t afford to miss the next meeting of the NMI FPGA Network... You will find this meeting especially compelling if you are an architect, designer, verification specialist, project manager or engineering manager.

We know how important design tools and methodologies are in creating better FPGA designs and FPGA systems-based, this is why we are excited to be sponsoring this event and would be delighted to see you there too!

On the day we will contribute to the debate with a discussion on ‘FPGA Platform Development Kit Enables Fast TTM’ delivered by Chad Hamilton, VP of Intellectual Property (IP), Software and Support at BittWare.

Chad will join the discussion along with FPGA specialists from other Industry leaders.

Confirmed Speakers 
Synopsys: Flexible debug and visibility techniques to enhance all FPGA design and deployment cycles
BittWare: FPGA platform development kit enables fast TTM
Mentor Graphics: Staying competitive by evolving your FPGAverification methodologies
Bitvis AS: A game changer for VHDL verification: advanced VHDL verification – made simple for anyone
Telexsus: FPGA real-time debug with vastly increased operational capture time – live demo
Cadence: 100M gate designs in FPGAs – fact or fiction?
Altera now part of Intel: Zen and the art of high-speed design
Xilinx: Vivado HLx Design Methodology
ITDev: Static code analysis using Blue Pearl software

See full details (pdf)

We are also very pleased to have Manuele Papais from DAVE Embedded Systems with us, showcasing their Xilinx Zynq based hardware and talking to engineers about Asymmetric Multi Processing on Cortex-A CPU: system integrity and reliability on Linux and RTOS cores.

Find out more and book your place here.

We look forward to seeing you at the FPGA Network Event ‘Design Tools and Methodologies’!

EE Journal Feature Article - The x86 Moat: Can Intel Defend the Data Center?

A Data Centre is a dedicated space for housing computer systems and associated components,

including telecoms and storage systems. Data centres stem from the days of the huge computer rooms of the early ages of the computing industry. This arrangement was largely unaffected by the steady reduction in size of the computer as the functionality requirements increased to such an extent that the systems still required the same amount of space. 

During the 1990s, the challenge was deploying enough processing power to meet the rapidly growing web audience. Considering Intel's market share for this industry today, x86-based servers didn't actually exist until the late 90s. But within a decade x86 processors were in the majority of servers being deployed in data centres.


Kevin Morris has written a really interesting article for EE Journal, looking at the role of FPGAs and their potential impact on the EDA industry.


May 31, 2016
The x86 Moat - Can Intel Defend the Data Center?
By Kevin Morris

Read the full article 

Excerpt:

Intel’s data center fortress is defended by the x86 moat.

The single factor that most locks Intel’s hardware into the sockets that sit on the blades that slip into the racks that line the rows of just about every data center on the planet is the x86 moat. Just about every piece of software in the universe was written and optimised for the x86 architecture. There are billions and billions of lines of code out there working every day that have been debugged and tested and proven to work reliably (well, as reliably as software gets, anyway) on Intel’s architecture.

Before any attacker can hope to displace the incumbent supplier, they have to convince the customer that changing processor architectures is really not that big a deal.

Well-designed fortresses are very good at protecting against the expected. For the fortress to be truly at risk - for Intel’s position in the data center to be realistically challenged in a meaningful way - we would need to see a sea change - an event that profoundly alters the nature of the game - a discontinuity.

FPGA-based acceleration is that discontinuity.

If the creation of heterogeneous processors with von Neumann machines sharing the workload with FPGA-based accelerators can improve energy efficiency in the data center by orders of magnitude, we have a compelling event worth an incredible amount of money - and trouble.

End of excerpt


FPGA Hardware
Sarsen Technology supplies and supports a wide range of hardware based on both Xilinx and Altera FPGAs, and can also supply a full range of software development tools and software drivers to get your FPGA system to market on-time and on-budget - www.sarsen.net
For more information please contact Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166, or send us an email: info@sarsen.net

3rd DAVIng Event - Learn, Discuss, Eat, Repeat!

Last week Nigel and Christos made the short hop across the continent to spend a couple of days with the DAVE Embedded Systems team in Porcia, Italy.

Following the success of last year's DAVing event the distribution network once again got together to meet and take part in a number of active training sessions as well as share their thoughts and ideas on how they can help DAVE Embedded Systems develop the business over the next 12 months. Sarsen Technology participated alongside Cynetis Embedded, Smart Embedded Systems DAVE Embedded Systems Germany and Digimax S.r.l.

As we know, all work and no play makes one very dull, so although the event was packed with training and interactive discussions there was still a little time for some sightseeing. Pordenone is a town about 15 minutes from the DAVE Embedded Systems offices, and the team enjoyed a tour of the town followed by a beautiful meal at La Ferrata.

Thanks to Eleonora and everyone at DAVE Embedded Systems for organising such an informative and motivating event! We're looking forward to working on some exciting new projects with you all this year.