DO-178C Compliant Drivers for Rugged XMC and VPX Graphics Cards

DO-178B, Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification was developed by the commercial avionics industry to create software guidelines for avionics software developers. Although ‘officially’ just that, a guideline, it quickly became a formal standard for developing avionics software systems.

Since its establishment there have been a number of iterations of the guideline. The first version of the document, DO-178, covered the basic avionics software lifecycle. Version two - DO-178A - added avionics software criticality level details and put emphasis on software component testing to measure and maintain quality. DO-178B expanded the avionics software quality requirements with continuous quality monitoring and testing in real-world conditions. At a relatively short 100 pages, DO-178B became the 'go-to' standard for a wide range of developers, making it quite broad in nature and requiring in-depth understanding of intent.

But it wasn't just necessary for flight products. DO-178B had a number of additional benefits, including higher reliability and consistency, greater re-usability, verifiable software quality, much lower lifecycle and maintenance costs, faster hardware integration and greater portability.

DO-178B was created to match the stringent development practices and technologies of its day, but it makes very little allowance for the latest development technologies, including formal methods, Model-Based Development (MBD), and the use of object-oriented technologies.

The DO-178C standard recognises this and was specifically written to help bring the certification of avionics software in line with these 21st-century technologies. DO-178C retains the core information from DO-178B, and updates it where necessary to consider the need for developers to begin testing, or verifying, early in the process. The single most significant aspect of DO-178C is the addition of three technology-specific legs under the “core document” inherited from DO-178B.

Tech Source provides rugged XMC and VPX graphics cards that are available with DO-178C compliant drivers for use in safety critial environments.

The Condor 4000 XMC Series products are leading edge XMC form factor, rugged graphics/video cards for use in applications that require very high-end rugged graphics and computational power.

Based on AMD’s Embedded Radeon™ E8860 discrete GPU, the Condor 4000 XMC Series products offer the highest level graphical and GPGPU performance available for the embedded and rugged market. Its built-in video decoder enables dual HD decoding of H.264, VC-1. MPEG4 and MPEG2 compressed video stream.

Based on AMD’s Radeon™ E8860 GPU, the Condor 4000 3U VPX Series offers ultra high graphics and GPGPU performance for defense (military), avionics and other rugged markets. The 3U VPX form factor allows for operation at full power (45W) because the 3U VPX form factor allows for improved cooling.  This board comes complete with VPX-REDI covers. 

 For more information please contact Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166 or send us an email.

Tech Source Changes Name to EIZO Rugged Solutions to Drive New Business in Global Rugged COTS Market

Exciting news from Tech Source!

As of April 1st, 2016 they are changing their name to EIZO Rugged Solutions Inc.

This name change is a reflection of EIZO's commitment to making a big impact in the rugged COTS market.

Here in the UK, the Condor and Tyton branded rugged graphics, video capture, encoding, streaming and recording products are rapidly increasing in popularity, thanks to their rugged design and system compatibility, based on XMC and VPX form factors.

Apart from the name change, there will be no other day to day changes with current or prospective customers. Tech Source will continue to design, develop and manufacture all Condor products in the US, as they currently do.

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High Performance XMC Graphics Processor with OpenCL™ Support

The Condor 4000 series is designed to provide very high graphics performance for OpenGL, DirectX, OpenCL, GPGPU and other applications, in rugged environments. Based on the new E8860 GPU from AMD, the Condor 4000 XMC series offers ground breaking performance with 60% better performance than the previous series.The product features 640 shader processors, 2GB graphics memory and OpenCL support. It also offers 768/48 GFLOPS single/double precision performance.

Condor 4000 Series Key Features

• Latest Embedded GPU from AMD (E8860)
• 2GB Frame Buffer
• XMC or 3U Open-VPX Form Factor
• 2D/3D Graphics Compatibility
• OpenGL 4.2/DirectX 11.1/OpenCL 1.2
• Front and Rear DVI/VGA/DisplayPort
 • Long-Term Product Availability
• Comprehensive Customer Care
• Ideal for Embedded Applications
• Optimised for DirectX 11

For more information on the name change, or to find out more about Tech Source and their range of rugged ccideo and graphics cards please contact Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 51166, or send us an email with your enquiry.

Tech Source’s Tyton VS1 Rugged H.264 Video Encoder Delivers Dual HD-SDI Inputs and Bypass Video Outputs

Since their very first day back in 1987, Tech Source has been a pioneer in high performance computer graphics hardware solutions for niche markets. The product range has evolved and grown over the years, and now includes graphics, imaging and video capture boards, H.264 encoders and high compression video recorders.

The latest innovation from the team at Tech Source is the Tyton VS1 H.264 video encoder. Designed for military, aerospace and harsh environment C4ISR markets, it offers a rugged, small form factor box-level video encoding and streaming solution.

The product features a hardware implementation of CoT (Cursor on Target) and KLV (Key Length Value) metadata insertion supported via RS-232 or Ethernet. Control of encoding settings and retrieval of Tyton health information are all performed using an API built around SNMP for simple and secure communication.

Tyton VS1 is rugged enough to operate in extremely harsh environments (shock, vibration, humidity) and temperatures from -45°C to 85°C (MIL-STD-810 & IP67), and comes with dedicated mounting holes for mounting on to racks. In the default configuration, the product accepts two high definition video inputs in 3G-SDI, HD-SDI or SD-SDI format through BNC connectors. Audio, 1Gbps Ethernet & RS-232 are routed over a 22-pin rugged circular MIL spec connector.

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The low power, low latency Tyton VS1 is an operating system independent, hardware agnostic, stand-alone rugged video encoding system. A control API is available for Windows XP/7/8 and Linux users to permit feature customisation and IP address setting.

For more information on the Tyton VS1 or any other product from Tech Source, please email info@sarsen.net or call +44 1672 511166.

Also available - the Condor product line includes a range of XMC/VPX based COTS products that are targeted towards extended temperature and rugged applications such as avionics, defense and industrial applications.

UPCOMING EVENTS!

Sarsen Technology takes part in various events throughout the year across a number of markets and technology sectors, sometimes as a visitor and quite often as an exhibitor. This is just a snapshot of our upcoming events, so if you would like more information please contact Laura Biddiscombe for details.

• June 9th - VentureFest, Bristol - A one-day event showcasing Bristol and Bath’s most innovative and enterprising companies and start-ups. This is a free event, however you will need a ticket.


• June 17th -  NMI Model Driven Engineering 2015 - As a member of NMI we get access to some great events. This one, held at Thales in Crawley, is mostly focussed on electronics and software domains, reflecting the interests of NMI members and guests.


• September 15th-18th - DSEI 2015 - DSEI brings together the entire defence and security industry to source the latest equipment and systems, develop international relationships, and generate new business opportunities. Sarsen Technology will be exhibiting within the UK Pavilion on stand S4-453, where you can see an exciting range of embedded technology from BittWare, Ecrin Systems, Extreme Engineering, General Standards and Tech Source.


• October 21st - 22nd - Embedded Design Show 2015 - Following last years' successful exhibition we are pleased to once again be taking part alongside the team from DAVE Embedded Systems. You can find us on Stand G32, where we will be showcasing the complete range of SoMs from DAVE Embedded Systems, based on FPGA technology, ARM Cortex-A architecture, Freescale and Texas Instruments processors and Xilinx SoC.

Defence and Aerospace Roadshow Confirmed Schedule

The schedule for the Dream Marketing Defence & Aerospace Roadshow has been confirmed.

Sarsen will be visiting all of the sites on the list, sharing some exciting technology from BittWare, Dave, Extreme Engineering, General Standards, Tech Source and Trenton Systems.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Mon 16th Sep	- BAE Systems Barrow
Tues 17th Sep	- Rolls-Royce - Derby
Wed 18th Sep	- Rolls Royce - Derby
Thur 19th Sep	- Selex ES - Basildon
Fri 20th Sep	- Safran Power - Pitstone
Mon 23th Sep	- Messier Dowty - Gloucester *TBC
Tues 24th Sep	- GE Aviation - Cheltenham
Wed 25th Sep	- Cobham Mission Systems - Wimborne
Thur 26th Sep	- QinetiQ - Boscombe Down
Fri 27th Sep	- General Dynamics - Newport
Mon 30th Sep	- BAE/Airbus - Filton
Tues 1st Oct	- Rolls Royce - Bristol
Wed 2nd Oct	- L-3 Comms - Tewkesbury
Thur 3rd Oct	- Agusta Westland - Yeovil

Check out Dream Marketing on LinkedIn

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!

Embedded World 2012 - Nuremberg

Nigel Norman of Sarsen Technology attended Embedded World 2012 in Nuremberg, Germany this week and met with colleagues from Altera, BittWare, Tech Source, VersaLogic and many more.

The successful Embedded World 2012 ended with two new records: 22,262 trade visitors from all over the world (+ 17 %) and 872 international exhibitors – up nine per cent over the previous year – make the tenth embedded world the biggest in the history of this event. “The embedded world Exhibition & Conference has shown once again that it is the top get-together for the embedded community. The rapid development in this sector is tangible at embedded world. The extension to five exhibition halls provided room for even more engineering know-how and pioneering innovations across all areas of the sector,” explains Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Sturm, HTWK Leipzig, Chairman of the embedded world Exhibition Committee. The two renowned conferences – the embedded world Conference and the electronic displays Conference – were just as powerful. With 19 per cent more participants and speakers, they confirm their position as outstanding working platforms for embedded experts.

Embedded World web site: Embedded World 2012

White Paper: Tech Source - Using Graphics Chips for General Purpose Computing

Just uploaded to the Sarsen Technology web site is a new white paper from Tech Source. It details how graphics chips become more powerful and how the power of these GPUs can be harnessed. While typical CPUs can process one single stream of commands per core, a modern graphics chip can process hundreds of simple floating point operations at the same time. The benefits of this translate directly into many applications where thousands of complex vector equations are required to be performed every second.

Read the Tech Source white paper: here.

Tech Source Visit the Sarsen Technology Offices

Left to right: Colleen Jameson (Sarsen), Laura Jeffs (Sarsen), Tim Norris (Sarsen), Selwyn Henriques (Tech Source), Robbie Burns (Sarsen), Nigel Norman (Sarsen) & Bill Fox (Tech Source).

It was great to welcome Selwyn Henriques & Bill Fox of Tech Source to our offices in January. The customer interest in their Condor series of high performance COTS XMC or VPX form factor graphics and video solutions was considerable and a number of exciting new projects were kicked off. Link to the Tech Source web site:

www.techsource.com

Four input H.264 compatible video capture XMC card

Selwyn Henriques and Bill Fox of Tech Source will be visiting Sarsen Technology at the end of January. One of the technologies they will be promoting is the Tech Source Condor VC 100x XMC video capture and compression card. The VC 100x has been designed for use in various applications such as surveillance, image detection, video recording, unmanned vehicles (UAV) and other camera based video recording/analysis applications. The VC100x is an H.264 compatible video capture XMC format card with up to 4 video inputs and typical markets for the Condor VC 100x are military, avionics, industrial and UAVs.

Please call us on 01672 511166 or contact us via our web site if you would like to meet with Selwyn & Bill. Sarsen Technology