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

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)!

A Walk Down Christmas Memory Lane...

There are only 13 sleeps to Santa, and here at Sarsen we do like to celebrate Christmas. This year we have a beautiful tree from Val and the lovely elves at Nature at Work, and Angela has planned a cracker (get it!?) of a Christmas do.

We've done a lot of different things over the last 17 years, from fancy dress parties to burlesque nights, extraordinary gastronomic experiences to cosy pub lunches. There are always plenty of photos/evidence to remember them by and there's normally a silly hat or two involved!

 This year we are taking a trip to Salisbury Plain to see the Great Bustards, which have been reintroduced back into the wild thanks to the hard work of The Great Bustard Group.

We'll be ready for a good feed after spending time in the bird hide, so we're stopping off for a festive feast at The Red Lion in East Chisenbury where all the Secret Santa fun and games will commence!

If you have any photos of your Christmas parties we'd love to see them! Ours will be posted here next Friday for your festive viewing pleasure :)

Best wishes to all friends and colleagues, old and new (especially to those who managed to avoid being in any photos!!).
Thanks for the memories!
Team Sarsen

11 Reasons to Consider Trenton Systems for Your Next High Performance Computing Solution

Trenton Systems designs and manufactures rugged computers and long-life components. Their single board computers and PCI Express backplanes have been created specifically to satisfy customers' unique requirements for application-ready computing solutions that provide exceptional functionality, performance and reliability.

TRENTON SYSTEMS

Over thirty-five years of electronic design experience is applied to engineering long-life single board computers, backplanes and embedded motherboards. In addition to their broad selection of standard products, Trenton excels at board-level modifications and custom designs.

The new MBS1000 1U Rackmount Modular Blade Server

In addition to their in-house electronic design, mechanical design and custom design capability, there’s a long list of reasons to partner with Trenton Systems on your next high-performance computing solution.

1. Trenton PICMG 1.3 single board computers, backplanes and embedded motherboards carry a full 5-year factory warranty.
2. System configuration stability is achieved with Trenton's long-life board-level products featuring 7+ years of product availability.
3. Trenton board and system products are built tough to survive and thrive in demanding industrial computing environments, Trenton motherboards, SBCs and backplanes are designed and built within the U.S. and integrated into their system solutions.
4. Trenton offers “designed to meet” rugged system solutions as well as mil-certified products to standards such as MIL-STD-810.
5. Trenton satisfies tough application requirements by designing and building computing solutions that meet your exact specifications.
6. Trenton system solutions provide maximum system flexibility to meet both current and future application deployment needs.
7. Trenton’s 35-plus years of design engineering, manufacturing and tech support knowledge focuses on exceeding customer expectations.
8. Trenton maintains complete system BIOS control on board-level products and provides modifications in support of complex integrated systems.
9. Trenton builds standard and custom small form factor products to provide short chassis depths or small mounting footprints.
10. Trenton board-level and system products are designed and built within their ISO 9001:2008 registered facilities located in the U.S.
11. Select Trenton board and system products support the PCI Express Gen3 serial interconnect for enhanced throughput.

Trenton Systems Product Selection Guides

An easy to use series of product selection guides are available that explain the different types of products available from Trenton, their unique application attributes and technical specifications:

What exactly is High Speed Financial Trading?

It's 'Financial February' here at Sarsen, so we thought it was a good idea to describe exactly what Financial Trading is, specifically the High Speed Financial Trading that we've been focussing on over the last few weeks.

In layman’s terms, it’s the use of very powerful computers programmed with sophisticated instructions to trade stocks and make profits from minute price variations that occur in less than a second.

Simples!

High Speed Financial Trading, or High Frequency Trading (HFT) doesn’t actually have anything to do with ‘investing’ as we know it, it’s simply a set of computing instructions that react to information much faster than any human can. These trades can make significantly less than 1p per share, but if you add up the millions of trades per day you’re looking at a respectable chunk of money!

‘Pretty complex stuff’, I hear you say...

Fortunately BittWare has designed and developed a growing family of PCIe format Altera Stratix V FPGA hardware which makes it easier for customers to create system solutions for financial acceleration.

The challenges in this space are quite unique:

• Require ultra-low latency feed handling
• Faster analysis/data correlation
• Maximum performance/watt (minimize energy and thermal requirements)
• Desire for scalable architecture to enable “FPGA Farm” implementation

‘Low-Latency’ is the real buzz word for HFT, with the solution offering the lowest latency being the most attractive to prospective customers.

The BittWare S5-PCIe-HQ half-length PCIe board, which features the Altera Stratix V FPGA, provides systems developers with a high level of system integration, and high-performance network processing, signal processing, and data acquisition possibilities.

For more information get in touch with the Sarsen team on +44 1672 511166, or email us – info@sarsen.net

The Friday Round-Up from Sarsen Technology...

It’s nearing the end of the working week, and it’s been a busy one for Sarsen Technology. With visits to key customers and new products to get excited about, we are looking forward to a busy summer….. when it arrives!

Some of the new products we have been talking about this week -

Our friends at Tech Source have announced the Condor3000x-cc; a new conduction cooled and rugged version of the Condor 3000x XMC card. The Condor 3000x-cc is a leading edge XMC form factor graphics/video card, based on AMD’s E6760 GPU, for use in applications that require very high-end graphics and computation in a rugged format. 

  

The XCalibur1600 from Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc. (X-ES) is a high-performance, 6U cPCI, single board computer supporting Freescale QorIQ P3, P4, and P5 processors. With eight Power Architecture e500mc cores running at up to 1.5 GHz, the P4080 delivers enhanced performance and efficiency for high-en military, communications and industrial embedded applications.

And in other news….

Sarsen Technology has decided to support Debbie Simpson in her bid to conquer the Marathon des Sables, to raise money for Facing Africa Noma, a great charity helping children overcome the legacy of the devastating disease noma.

Tim Norris, one of our account managers, is off to ‘Les Alpes’ this weekend on a mountain-biking holiday. Break a leg Tim. Oh, wait….   Follow Tim on Twitter @Embedded_Tim

Sarsen Technology has a brand new line card. If you’d like one sent out to you contact us at info@sarsen.net

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sarsen Technology DSEi Competition Winner

If you visited the Sarsen Technology Ltd stand at the Defence Security and Equipment International (DSEi) exhibition last September, you would have had the opportunity to add your business card to the hat and enter a prize draw to win a brand new iPad 3.

Sarsen had hundreds of visitors to the stand at the exhibition at ExCeL, many with a keen interest in the embedded computing and data acquisition COTS hardware, software & systems supplied by Sarsen to the world’s leading defence & aerospace OEMs. The BittWare embedded COTS hardware featuring the Altera Stratix FPGA is a key technology solution supported by Sarsen Technology. Steve Dodsworth of Altera drew the winning card from the hat.

The lucky recipient of the iPad 3 was Julien Loyer of Esterel Technologies. Julien had to wait until Apple released the iPad 3 until he could receive his prize at the Altera European HQ in High Wycombe.

Steve Dodsworth of Altera is pictured presenting the prize to Julien Loyer of Esterel Technologies. 



Left to right:
Bob Blake - Product & Corporate Marketing Manager, Altera Europe Ltd
iPad 3 Price draw winner: Julien Loyer - Sales Manager Northern Europe, Esterel Technologies
Steve Dodsworth - EMEA North Area Sales Director, Altera Europe Ltd
Nigel Norman - Managing Director, Sarsen Technology Limited

High Performance Computing Systems for UAVs

In recent years Sarsen Technology has successfully delivered a number of 19" rackmount high-performance computer systems for the flight control and mission analysis of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) projects. At the heart of these systems are Trenton Technology PICMG 1.3 embedded System Host Boards (SHBs) and PICMG 1.3 backplanes designed for the latest Intel multi-core processors.

VersaLogic Wildcat Intel Core 2 Duo PC/104 SBC

Details of the new VersaLogic Wildcat PC/104 Single Board Computer have been added to the press release section of our web site:

Sarsen Technology Press Releases

The Wildcat is a high performance PC/104 format SBC based on the 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU.

EVOC Gathering - Dusseldorf

Prior to visiting the EVOC Dusseldorf office, the EVOC European distribution team met to discuss market applications and EVOC's plans for Europe in 2010. Here are a few images from the meeting.