System on Modules - FPGAs, SoCs and Development Kits

 
System-on-Modules (SoMs) are compact, embedded computers designed for integration into a range of different applications. SoM is an extension of the concept of System on Chip (SoC) and sits somewhere on the scale between a single board computer and a microcontroller in nature. SoMs are small and offer very flexible configuration options with all the I/O already on board.

Some devices also incorporate FPGA components. We work with REFLEX CES, who use their extensive FPGA experience and combine it with their embedded knowledge to create a range of SoMs based on the leading programmable System-on-Chip (SoC) processors, perfectly suited to a wide range of requirements.

These SoMs are form factor agnostic, which is ideal when you are looking to offer different carrier board or performance grade options to your customer as part of your strategy. These devices are well suited for demanding embedded applications like instrumentation and healthcare/biosciences.

The Achilles SoM from REFLEX CES features the Intel® Arria® 10 SX FGPA.

• 226 SE IOs total (113 LVDS)
• 24 transceivers @ 10Gbps
• 2x DDR4 banks up to 2400MT/s
• Industrial Temp

To really maximise the time spent on your initial design phase, REFLEX CES offers development kits specifically for their programmable SoC based SoM modules. The Achilles Instant Devkits and modules have been delivered to companies located in 20 different countries around the world, thanks to the support of its distributor partners.

The Achilles Dev Kit includes:

• Arria 10 SoM Module
• PCIe carrier board with I/Os
• VHDL test designs
• Cabling and other accessories for an ‘out of the box’ experience
• Technical documents including reference manual, mechanical drawings, 3D Step and assembly files 
• Kernel Linux & Linaro optimised distribution, 
• U-boot bootloader, Test scripts

There are many benefits to using SoM products instead of ground-up development, from increasing speed to market, reduction of risk, cost savings and the choice of a variety of CPUs, to reduced requirements and time for customer design, and the ability to conduct both hardware and software development at once.

Give us a call or send us a quick email outlining your requirements and we’ll give you a call back.

• Life Sciences • Embedded Industrial • Instrumentation • Medical • Industrial Printing Machines • Radar Systems • Artificial Intelligence • Scientific & Chemistry Instrumentation • ASIC & IP Prototyping

Accelerate your 5G and NFV Workloads with Intel PAC and Netcope P4

Did you know, Netcope P4 supports Intel® FPGA PAC N3000?

Netcope P4 compiles the packet processing program written in open-standard P4 language into 100 Gbps FPGA firmware, allowing unprecedented flexibility and rapid development of high-speed network applications.

Netcope P4 Flyer 

It offers a revolutionary way for programmable network adapters to be easily programmed using P4 language without expert knowledge of hardware architecture, which can significantly save money when hiring dedicated firmware designers. It also shortens time-to-market, avoiding lengthy firmware development cycles.

Using the Arria 10 FPGA, now in mass production, Intel® FPGA PAC N3000 is the platform of choice for the acceleration of many bandwidth and latency-sensitive virtualised network applications, such as vRAN, vEPC, vBNG and others. Netcope P4 brings the possibilities for this card to a whole new level. Instead of tedious and error-prone HDL coding, the card can be programmed in the open-standard P4 language.

Netcope P4 is now specifically optimised to take advantage of the N3000 unique features, offering large capacities of lookups in off-chip DDR memories and achieving line-rate packet processing with low latency and resource utilization. With Netcope P4 and N3000, your fully custom 100 Gbps packet processor built with COTS hardware is just hours away.

Sarsen Technology is Netcope's UK partner. For more information on P4 or FPGA acceleration please contact us.

Watch Video - Intel® FPGA PAC N3000

First Public Demonstration of a SOSA-Aligned 100GbE VPX Switch

As you may have seen recently on social media and myriad industry news sites there was some very exciting technology demonstrated at the Tri-Service Open Architecture Interoperability Demonstration (TSOA-ID) on January 29 at Georgia Tech Research Institute.

TSOA-ID was the first time the three branches of United States Armed Services (Army, Navy and Air Force) were brought together with standards organisations including HOST, SOSA, CMOSS and VITA working alongside leading industry partners like Annapolis Micro Systems and Leonardo DRS to demonstrate the ease of interoperability of rugged embedded hardware and software modules.

WILDSTAR 6E10 6U VPX Switch operating in Air Force chassis
TSOA-ID Dry Run in December 2019

TSOA-ID featured the very first public demonstration of a SOSA™-aligned 100Gb Ethernet-capable VPX switch and processing board. The next-generation WILDSTAR™ 100GbE 6E10 6U OpenVPX Switch and 6XB2 6U OpenVPX FPGA module from our partners at Annapolis featured in a live conformance and interoperability demo running within a US Air Force chassis.


Alongside the 100GbE demo, Annapolis also showcased the SOSA-aligned WILDSTAR 6XBU 6U OpenVPX FPGA Processing Board, which offers ultra-wide bandwidth digitisation and processing in a single 6U VPX board. It also delivers remarkable instantaneous bandwidth: 32 GHz receive and 24 GHz transmit.

Annapolis high-performance products can be used in a wide range of applications, including advanced HPC, ISR, and multi-function EW applications, such as phased array radar, cybersecurity network processing, DRFM, beamforming, sensor processing, wireless communication, and radar signal processing.

See more Annapolis Products

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)!

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.

Cyber Security Technology - Who, Where, Why, When and How in the Southwest!

WHO is CyNam?

CyNam is a non-profit networking organisation for the UK's cyber security and technology

community in the South West of England.

WHERE are they based?

Up until quite recently, cyber hubs and technology investment groups have focused their activity around Bristol, Birmingham and Oxford, but Cheltenham has calibre for cyber technology, particularly within the areas of big data analysis and information security initiatives.

WHY was CyNam created?

The goal of CyNam, which launched in 2016, is to bring together industry innovators from local SME’s and start-ups to make full use of the strong cyber security community around Cheltenham.

WHEN can I get involved?

CyNam hosts regular cyber events once a quarter and they are attended by senior business leaders in the cyber field as well as young start-ups and entrepreneurs. Nigel Norman, MD - Sarsen Technology has attended some of these events and found them incredibly useful for networking as well as discussing new technology and developments in the cyber arena with other interested parties.

CyNam has been shortlisted for the 2019 Cyber Security Awards, as 'Not for Profit Team of the Year’. The awards are on 4th July and we wish CyNam the best of luck in their category!

---

HOW do we support Cyber Security at Sarsen?

Sarsen Technology supports a wide variety of cyber security, intelligence, surveillance and secure communications projects across the UK. The applications we support must accommodate the strictest security measures as well as aggressive data bandwidths, and in most cases must reduce size, weight, and power (SWaP).

We work with some of the best manufacturers in the world to supply a select range of unique products including 19” rackmount systems and FPGA based hardware. The latest addition to our product line is REFLEX CES, whose designs and solutions for both evaluation and prototyping, are built using the latest FPGA technology solutions based on Intel FPGA or Xilinx FPGA, modified COTS, or full turnkey designs.

For a detailed review of your application please contact one of the engineering team to discuss your requirements - info@sarsen.net

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

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.

Cyber Cheltenham - Meet Cyber Talent at CyNam 11th October 2018

CyNam, (Cyber Cheltenham) is a non-profit networking group based in the heart of the UK's cyber security and technology ecosystem in Gloucestershire.

Despite Cheltenham having an excellent pedigree for cyber technology, development networks and technology investment groups have focused their attention on Birmingham, Bristol and Oxford. CyNam is hoping to change this.

Find Out More - CyNam

The goal of CyNam is to bring together the best technology minds from local SME’s and Start-ups, to fully harness the rich cyber security ecosystem that flourishes around Cheltenham, the home of the National Technical Authority for Information Security, GCHQ.

 
CyNam 18.3 has now been confirmed for the evening of Thursday 11th October.

With a focus on The Evolving Role of the CISO the first confirmed speakers are Mark Schiller: Interim CISO at Heathrow Airports and Andrea Simmons: Previously CISO at HP Enterprise Security.

If you’ve never been to a CyNam meet up you can register your interest here.


Nigel Norman from Sarsen Technology will be there, and it’s a great opportunity to meet with a group of knowledgeable individuals, great companies, new exciting start-ups and exceptional Cyber talent.

If you'd like more information please get in touch - Contact Sarsen Technology

 

September 2018 - Netcope Technologies Announces the Appointment of Sarsen Technology Ltd as UK Distributor

As you may have seen in the news this week and across social media, the team at Sarsen Technology Limited is very excited to be working with Netcope Technologies as their exclusive sales and marketing partner in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

If you haven't heard of Netcope Technologies they are about to make a big splash here in the UK.

Based in Brno in the Czech Republic, Netcope specialises in high-performance networking solutions, including state-of-the-art FPGA technology for packet capture, network packet processing (NPP) and low-latency trading applications.


Nigel Norman, Managing Director of Sarsen Technology Limited added, “The embedded FPGA market is changing fast as FPGA technology becomes ever more widely adopted. Our customers, especially in the cyber security, networking and financial trading markets, are looking for more complete solutions from Sarsen Technology rather than just FPGA hardware and software drivers".

Netcope Technologies has innovative, exciting and customer-proven FPGA solutions that have our engineering team chomping at the bit. Their 200GBPS Ethernet adapter will give our networking product customers a significant processing boost, and Netcope’s P4 smart NIC programming solution will rapidly change the way that network data plane processing is achieved.

FinTech customers won't miss out either - Netcope's wire speed packet capture processing is a game changer for low-latency packet processing and the low latency financial trading solution, Tradecope, is a powerful solution for our high frequency trading customers.

We are looking forward to busy but exciting times ahead!

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

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

BittWare Releases Latest Version of BittWorks and OpenCL BSP for Arria 10 FPGA Boards

BittWare offers a complete range of FPGA boards designed to meet your needs. Their Arria 10 FPGA boards feature Intel’s high-end FPGAs to provide superior development productivity and unmatched performance. The latest boards feature PCIe x8 and x16 interfaces.

A10PL4	A10SA4
Intel Arria 10 GT/GX FPGA Low Profile PCIe Board with Dual QSFP and DDR4	Arria 10 GX Low Profile PCIe Board with QSFP and DDR4 on BittWare 'Spider' Thermal Platform
Datasheet	Datasheet

BittWare has put two decades of product design experience into creating a mature and robust suite of development tools that is tightly integrated with its FPGA products. These tools for system development and FPGA development shorten our customers’ learning curve while increasing their productivity, allowing them to reduce development costs and shorten their time to market.

OpenCL Bundle	BittWorks II Toolkit
BittWare’s OpenCL Developer’s Bundle provides the tools necessary to begin developing applications for the Altera Arria 10 or Stratix V using OpenCL. Open-CL dramatically simplifies FPGA development by enabling designers to code their systems and algorithms in a high-level C-based framework, directly generating FPGA programming files from a pure software development flow.	The BittWorks II Toolkit is a suite of development tools for BittWare’s FPGA-based hardware that serves as the main interface between the BittWare board and the host system. The Toolkit includes drivers, libraries, utilities, and example projects for accessing, integrating, and developing applications for the BittWare board.

• OpenCL BSP for Quartus 17.1.1 is now available for the A10PL4 and A10SA4. An updated Hello World example is also available for each board.

• Version 2018.1 of the BittWorks II Toolkit is now available. This is the first toolkit release of 2018. Software releases are numbered as the N'th release of the year. Software releases do not align with FPGA development environment software releases. This is a minor release. We recommend that you upgrade if you are using the Ubuntu operating system.

•  Release highlights: 

• Support for 4.10 kernel added for Ubuntu 16.04
• Fixed Ubuntu toolkit services
• Add missing BwShell functions

Please contact Sarsen Technology for more information.

White Paper - Intel Stratix 10 MX Devices Solve the Memory Bandwidth Challenge

White Paper

Intel® Stratix® 10 MX Devices Solve the Memory Bandwidth Challenge

Intel has put together a new White Paper to explain how the brand new Intel Stratix 10 MX family will help customers efficiently meet their most demanding memory bandwidth requirements.

"Conventional memory solutions have limitations that make it difficult for them to meet next-generation memory bandwidth requirements. This white paper describes the emerging memory landscape that addresses these limitations.

The Intel® Stratix® 10 MX (formerly Altera® Stratix 10 MX) DRAM system-in-package (SiP) family combines a 1 GHz high-performance monolithic FPGA fabric, state-of-the-art Intel Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) technology, and High Bandwidth Memory 2 (HBM2), all in a single package. The Intel Stratix 10 MX family helps customers efficiently meet their most demanding memory bandwidth requirements, which are not possible using conventional memory solutions.

This white paper describes the solution and explains how Intel Stratix 10 MX devices solve the memory bandwidth challenge for key end markets and applications."


Authors
Manish Deo
Senior Product Marketing Manager
Intel Programmable Solutions Group

Jeffrey Schulz
In-Package I/O Implementation Lead
Intel Programmable Solutions Group

Lance Brown
Senior Strategic and
Technical Marketing Manager
Intel Programmable Solutions Group

© 2017 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

7 Festive Things You Didn't Know About Team Sarsen...

A little festive fun from the team. Merry Christmas!

NIGEL
1. Christmas must-see movie.   
I do love “Wizard of Oz” but “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is our family favourite. I have never seen “The Sound Of Music” and I never will.
2. What are you having for Christmas dinner?   
Free range, organic, local turkey
3. A Christmassy family tradition in your house.  
A themed Boxing Day for a big family get together. The food, costumes, drink, music, decoration are all themed – this year it’s all gone Greek.
4. Favourite Christmas song/carol.  
“In The Bleak Midwinter” & “Coventry Carol” (I was a choir boy but now I now sing bass – But I still try to sing the descant on the last verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful”.)
5. What makes you feel festive? 
Spiced rum
6. New Year’s Resolution.  
Remember to smile when happy
7. A present you’re secretly hoping for this year.  
World Peace or a book called “David Bowie: A Life” by Dylan Jones
       
ANGELA
1. Christmas must-see movie.  
The Grinch
2. What are you having for Christmas dinner?  
Turkey, free-range of course and without the trimmings, but lots of roast potatoes, vegetables and lashings of gravy
3. A Christmassy family tradition in your house.
We always have a themed Boxing Day with our extended family.  Every year we dress up, decorate, play music and eat a menu based around a chosen country.  In recent years we have been to Mexico, Cuba, Italy, Sweden (even hired a hot tub for that one!), and Hawaii (musically challenging). This year we are off to Greece for the day – looking forward to Calamari, Sea Bass, veggie Moussaka, and Greek Salad with plenty of Feta cheese of course!
4. Favourite Christmas song/carol.
Away in a Manager – precious memories of nativity plays when the children were small.
5. What makes you feel festive?   
Marlborough High Street on Saturday mornings in December.
6. New Year’s Resolution.  
I am waiting to be told by my family – I’ll let you know!
7. A present you’re secretly hoping for this year.  
Honestly? Headway on a global scale on the use of and disposal of plastics, especially into our oceans.
       
CHRISTOS
1. Christmas must-see movie.  
Home Alone
2. What are you having for Christmas dinner?    
Thick Pork bacon slices, Sausages, Roast turkey, Salad, Roasted Potatoes, Rice, Bulgur Wheat, and possibly game of some sort. And for dessert Melomakarona and Kourabiedes
3. A Christmassy family tradition in your house.  
Getting to the church in the morning, then going to the local football club “house” to have a coffee and participate in raffle, Then go to my grandfathers named Christos, so we celebrate our nameday with the whole family and at night go out to Bouzoukia.
4. Favourite Christmas song/carol.  
White Christmas by Bing Crosby – Holiday Inn 1942
5. What makes you feel festive?   
The Christmas lights, the Christmas movies combined with bad weather outside, and the fireplace at my favourite café in the area I live in Cyprus.
6. New Year’s Resolution.  
Live a day like a lion rather 100 days like a sheep. I am kidding. To get back to exercising, learn a language, go somewhere I have never been before.
7. A present you’re secretly hoping for this year.  
I truly hope for love, well-being and peace.
       
LYNN
1. Christmas must-see movie.  
Our annual Christmas season movie is Moulin Rouge! Heavens knows why – we just love it.
2. What are you having for Christmas dinner?  
This year we are steering away from ‘traditional’ and having duck confit.
3. A Christmassy family tradition in your house.  
For the kids in the family and when I was a child we planted a ‘magic’ seed on Christmas Eve together with a Christmas Carol singalong and the magic tree grew overnight. Such great excitement on Christmas morning!
4. Favourite Christmas song/carol.  
O come all ye Faithful!
5. What makes you feel festive?  
Lovely glowing golden Christmas lights and candles.
6. New Year’s Resolution.    
Cut out biscuits, sweets and chocolates!!
7. A present you’re secretly hoping for this year. 
 A log burner!
       
LAURA
1. Christmas must-see movie.  
Love Actually. To me, it's perfect.
2. What are you having for Christmas dinner?  
Turkey, all the trimmings (including yorkshires, pigs in blankets and stuffing) and 'Delightful'. Which in our family is trifle without the revolting soggy sponge. And Angel Delight instead of blancmange. We win at desserts.
3. A Christmassy family tradition in your house.  
When we were kids we'd all open our stockings sat at the foot of Mum and Dad's bed. Now I do the same but with our cats. Yes, they have stockings too.
4. Favourite Christmas song/carol.   
All Alone on Christmas by Darlene Love. And it's not Christmas until 'The Buble' has been on at least 15 times.
5. What makes you feel festive?    
Twinkly lights and cinnamon.
6. New Year’s Resolution.  
Convince Nigel that The Sound of Music is a wonderful film.
7. A present you’re secretly hoping for this year.  
Unbelievably, socks. Big, fluffy knee length socks. With pom poms.