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)

In Case You Missed It... DSEI 2017

Sarsen Technology exhibited in the dedicated Security Zone at DSEI 2017, showcasing the some of the worlds highest-performance computing hardware from some of our international manufacturers..

We were joined by Ken Sheth and Tony Barbieri from EIZO Rugged Solutions who were running a very cool interactive GPGPU CUDA demo, based on the new Condor GR3 3U VPX single board computer.

Kerry Howell and Gary Harris from VersaLogic were also with us on the stand and introduced their brand new Ethernet over Fibre mini PCIe module which was very popular. VersaLogic's family of rugged, embedded computers were on display, including a special focus on the modules with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), including the new Raven and Liger boards.

If you stopped by the stand you would have seen a number of 1553 and ARINC boards from Alta Data and a wide range of rugged SBCs from Extreme Engineering, including the XPedite8150 COM Express Module based on the Intel Atom E3800 'Bay Trail' series of processors. We also had a lot of interest in the PCIe boards from BittWare, featuring both Xilinx UltraScale and Intel Arria 10 and Stratix V FPGAs.

If you didn't make it to DSEI this year but you'd like some more info on the technology we were talking about at the event please get in touch - info@sarsen.net

 

New NVIDIA CUDA-based 3U VPX GPGPU Module is a Game Changer!

With the recent release of the Condor GR3 3U VPX from EIZO Rugged Solutions we are excited to be now be in a position able to offer a powerful, complete single-slot 3U VPX GPGPU solution, based on the Condor GR3 and the XPedite7501 XMC module from Extreme Engineering Solutions.

This combination offers an ideal graphics processing solution for a wide range of high performance and compute intensive project requirements. Radar, airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) applications where size, weight, and power (SWaP) and system flexibility are key considerations. This architecture allows for an easy and versatile upgrade path of both the graphics module and the SBC.

Both boards are rugged, MIL-STD-810 compliant, and support extended temperature operation (-40°C to +85°C) for use in extreme environments, providing performance-oriented GPGPU customers a complete solution that doesn’t compromise on reliability.

The Condor GR3 3U VPX GPGPU solution hosts NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX-950M processor with 640 CUDA cores and 1,271 TFLOPs of floating point performance, and supports multiple I/O interfaces including Ethernet, RS-232, USB, and SATA.

The XPedite7501 is a high-performance, low-power, XMC module based on the 5th generation Intel® Core™ i7 Broadwell-H processor. With up to three PCI Express Gen3-capable ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports, the XPedite7501 is ideal for high-bandwidth data processing applications. The XPedite7501 also leverages Intel® Iris™ Pro graphics for graphics-intensive applications and serves as a general-purpose GPU for demanding data processing applications.

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

Condor GR3 3U VPX Features

XPedite7501 Features

3U VPX form factor (conduction cooled) Designed for SWaP constrained applications NVIDIA® Maxwell™ GPU  GeForce® GTX 950M XMC site for hosting an XMC form factor computer Two configurations currently available: - GR3-C3: 6th generation Intel® Core™ i3-6102E - GR3-X7: 5th generation Intel® Core™ i7-5700EQ Supports NVIDIA® CUDA® and OpenCL™ 1.2 640 CUDA cores, 1.271 TFLOPs shader performance 4GB GDDR5 graphics memory DirectX® 12, OpenGL® 4.5, Shader 5.0 8 or 4 lane PCI Express 2.0 DVI, VGA and DisplayPort outputs on VPX P1/P2 Two 1Gbps Ethernet, Two USB 2.0, Two RS-232 and Two SATA Long term product availability Ideal for rugged applications Windows or Linux drivers Contact us for the latest datasheet

Supports 5th generation (Broadwell-H) and 4th generation (Haswell) Intel® Core™ i7 processors XMC (VITA 42) module Conduction or air cooling Up to 8 GB of DDR3L-1600 ECC SDRAM in two channels Up to 32 GB of NAND flash Two x4 or one x8 PCI Express Gen3-capable P15 XMC interface One x4 PCI Express P16 XMC interface Two Gigabit Ethernet ports Four USB 2.0 ports Two SATA ports Two RS-232/422/485 serial ports HDMI/DVI-D or Dual-Mode DisplayPort interface Intel® vPro™/AMT support Linux BSP Microsoft Windows drivers Contact Sarsen for availability of Green Hills INTEGRITY, QNX Neutrino, Wind River VxWorks and LynuxWorks LynxOS BSPs  See Datasheet

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.

NMI Event - “Managing FPGA Projects: A Cat-herders Guide” - November 25th 2015

Sarsen Technology is taking part in the “Managing FPGA Projects: A Cat-herders Guide” event next week, organised by NMI.

About NMI



Agenda items include:

“Leveraging ASIC and Software methodologies for FPGA design” – Leon Wildman – Aptcore

“Managing complexity: version control basics for FPGA projects” – Sven-Erik Knop – Perforce

“Teaching an old dog new tricks – The opportunities and resulting challenges of getting consumer silicon into safety critical systems” – Mike Allen, Jon Wright – GE Avionics

“Management sans frontiers: Removing the roadblocks in FPGA projects” – Chris Higgs – Potential Ventures

“Optimizing the HW/SW partition of complex embedded systems” – Simon George – Xilinx

“Inspiring the next generation of FPGA engineers: Skills management in the long term” – Jeremy Bennett – Embecosm

“Requirement driven development for safety-critical applications” – Alex Grove – FirstEDA/Aldec

“Applying Agile Techniques to FPGA Projects” – Nigel Elliott – Mentor Graphics

. . . plus an open discussion to share hints and best practices.

Sarsen will be showcasing Altera and Xilinx FPGA-based hardware from BittWare, Extreme Engineering and DAVE Embedded Systems, as well as C to FPGA software for Xilinx and Altera FPGAs from Impulse Accelerated.

REGISTER NOW

Registration is now open, so please join us to learn some new tips, tricks and “agile” methods that teams are using in order to keep on top of ever-more complex FPGA designs.

FIPS 140-2 and Common Criteria Certified Router Featuring Cisco IOS Technology

Author - Laura

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) is commited to providing high quality, cost-effective hardware and software solutions for the embedded systems market. Alongside their extensive range of high-performance single board computers (SBCs) and rugged, extended temperature systems X-ES provides a range of rugged routers running Cisco™ IOS® IP routing software.

Designed to meet the needs of the most demanding and Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) constrained mobile and embedded networking applications each router supports four routed, high-speed Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, enabling the routers to serve as an aggregation point for on-demand network connectivity in mobile or fixed deployments. The X-ES routers extend the Cisco enterprise infrastructure beyond the reach of traditional fixed-network infrastructure for military, oil and gas, mining, smart grid, heavy construction, transportation, homeland security, public safety, and disaster recovery applications.

• XPedite5205 Embedded Services Router (ESR) - a PMC/XMC-based router
• XPand6004 - a rugged packaged router in a Small Form Factor (SFF) enclosure
• Cisco 5940 - a 3U CompactPCI router

On September 10th, 2014 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cryptographic Module Validation Program issued Certificate #2242 for the X-ES XPedite5205 XMC/PMC Cisco IOS® Embedded Services Router (ESR). The XPedite5205 has been validated to FIPS 140-2 Overall Level 1 by an NVLAP-accredited Cryptographic Module Testing (CMT) laboratory. Additionally, this ESR has been validated to Roles, Services, and Authentication Level 2, and Design Assurance Level 3.

On November 17th, 2014 the National Information Assurance Partnership issued the Common Criteria Certificate for the XPedite5205 XMC/PMC Cisco IOS® Embedded Services Router (ESR) for completion of the evaluation in accordance with the Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme (CCEVS). The XPedite5205 satisfies the Assurance Activities criteria as defined within the Common Criteria (CC) Protection Profile for Network Devices, Version 1.1 and Protection Profile for Network Devices VPN Gateway Extended Package, Version 1.1.

For more information please contact Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166 or send us an email with your enquiry - info@sarsen.net

FPGAs - Right For Your Application?

Simply put, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit that can be programmed after manufacturing.

In 1985 Xilinx co-founders Ross Freeman and Bernard Vonderschmitt invented the first commercially viable FPGA. Two decades later, Freeman was entered into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention.

FPGAs allow designers to adapt or completely change their designs very late in the production cycle– even after the end system has been manufactured and deployed in the field. You can configure an FPGA to be as simple or as complex as you require, but an FPGA does nothing by itself. FPGAs store their configuration in RAM, meaning that once they the power is switched off they lose their configuration. They must be configured every time power is applied.


To get started. the designer needs to create a bit file for the FPGA. Once it's loaded the FPGA will behave like the digital circuit you designed. FPGAs have large resources of logic gates and RAM blocks to implement complex digital programs. Similar to a PLD, but whereas PLDs are generally limited to hundreds of gates, FPGAs support thousands of gates. Thanks to their programmable nature, FPGAs are an ideal fit for many different markets.

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Extreme Engineering (X-ES) has designed and manufactured a line of high-performance FPGA processing modules in industry-standard XMC and 3U VPX form factors. These rugged, configurable modules include features such as FMC sites and daughter cards to simplify I/O compatibility for many different applications.

X-ES also has extensive experience integrating FPGAs with Intel® and Freescale-based SBC and I/O platforms into a wide range of customer-specific and SecureCOTS designs. With the combination of superior signal processing capabilities as well as high speed A/D and D/A conversion, these modules are ideal solutions for high-end RF signal acquisition, SDR, and DSP requirements.

Check out the FPGA Development Kit (FDK) whitepaper from X-ES for an in-depth review of how to integrate their FPGA capabilities into your application.

Extreme Engineering Solutions

Extreme Environments Demand Extreme Engineering Solutions - Rugged SBCs and Systems from X-ES

Author: Laura Biddiscombe

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) is a leader in designing advanced, embedded computing products for the harsh environments seen in military and industrial applications.

They utilise best-in-class design, test, and manufacturing practices to develop products that deliver reliable operation in the extremes of temperature, shock, vibration, and environment.

Three levels of ruggedization are available for X-ES products, supporting commercial, extended temperature, and conduction-cooled applications. Products may be air-cooled or conduction-cooled depending on the end application. These levels allow our customers to tailor a solution to their application by selecting the range that best suits their needs for thermal, vibration, shock and performance.

Standard Air-Cooled - Level 1
Operating Temperature	0 to +55°C ambient, 300 LFM, per MIL-STD-810F 501.4 Procedure II and Method 502.4 Procedure II
Storage Temperature	-40 to +85°C ambient †
Vibration	0.002 g²/Hz, 1 hour per axis from 5 to 2000 Hz
Shock	20 g, 11 ms sawtooth, per MIL-STD-810F Method 516.5 Procedure I
Humidity	0% to 95% non-condensing, per MIL-STD-810F Method 507.4
Rugged Air-Cooled - Level 3
Operating Temperature	-40 to +70°C, 600 LFM, per MIL-STD-810F 501.4 Procedure II and Method 502.4 Procedure II
Storage Temperature	-55 to +105°C, per MIL-STD-810F Method 501.4 Procedure I and Method 502.4 Procedure I †
Vibration	0.04 g²/Hz (maximum), 1 hour per axis from 5 to 2000 Hz ‡
Shock	30 g, 11 ms sawtooth, per MIL-STD-810F Method 516.5 Procedure I
Humidity	0% to 95% non-condensing, per MIL-STD-810F Method 507.4
Conduction-Cooled - Level 5
Operating Temperature	-40 to +85°C board rail surface temperature, per MIL-STD-810F Method 501.4 Procedure II and Method 502.4 Procedure II
Storage Temperature	-55 to +105°C, per MIL-STD-810F Method 501.4 Procedure I and Method 502.4 Procedure I †
Vibration	0.1 g²/Hz (maximum), 1 hour per axis from 5 to 2000 Hz ‡
Shock	40 g, 11 ms sawtooth, per MIL-STD-810F Method 516.5 Procedure I
Humidity	0% to 95% non-condensing, per MIL-STD-810F Method 507.4

If an application does not fall into one of these three ruggedization levels, X-ES offers extended temperature, humidity, and vibration screening services. Many military designs, for example, have a -55ºC operational requirement. In the case where screening alone is not practical, X-ES has experience with heater tapes and other alternative solutions. Optional features, such as conformal coating, are available.

Contact the Sarsen Technology Technical Team for more information about available options.

Not Recommended for New Designs - XCalibur1002 goes EOL

All good things come to an end. And the XCalibur1002 from Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) is no exception.

The XCalibur1002 uses a component that will reach end of life status in December 2013. This obsolescence event will effectively end the life of the XCalibur1002 product series.

We are offering a last time purchase of the EOL component to potentially extend the life of the XCalibur1002 for your application.

Unfortunately, after December 2013 we cannot guarantee the future availability of XCalibur1002 product.

If you are looking to replace your legacy product the recommended alternative is the XCalibur1600 - a Freescale eight-Core P4080-based 6U cPCI module. Wind River VxWorks, Linux, and Green Hills INTEGRITY Board Support Packages (BSPs) are available.

XCalibur1600

XCalibur1600 features -

• Conduction or air cooling
• Up to 16 GB of DDR3-1333 ECC SDRAM in two channels
• Up to 512 MB of NOR flash (with redundancy)
• Up to 64 GB of CPU NAND flash
• Up to 128 GB of SATA NAND flash (optional)
• Three Gigabit Ethernet ports
• x4 PCI Express to XMC sites
• Up to four SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• Two RS-232/422/485 serial ports
• XAUI to XMC site
• Two PrPMC/XMC interfaces

If you would like any details of the EOL or the replacement product XCalibur1600 please get in touch with Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166 or email the sales team - sales@sarsen.net