OpenCL support for even more Altera Stratix V variants on BittWare's S5-PCIe-HQ PCIe board...

The Open Computing Language (OpenCL™) programming model is supported on Altera’s Stratix® V FPGA architecture and BittWare’s Stratix V FPGA COTS hardware, providing an incredibly powerful solution for system acceleration.

BittWare is a member of Altera’s Preferred Board Partner Program for OpenCL.

The S5-PCIe-HQ (S5PH-Q) Altera Stratix® V half-length PCIe COTS board is optimised for the most current Altera device architectures and design software, and is supported by Altera’s SDK for OpenCL. The Altera® SDK for OpenCL provides a design environment enabling users to easily implement OpenCL applications on Altera’s FPGAs.

BittWare announced at SuperComputing 2013 (Nov) that OpenCL support has now been expanded to additional Stratix V variants on their S5-PCIe-HQ (S5PH-Q) PCI Express board. FPGA options now include GSMD5, GSED8, GXEA7 and GXEAB devices.

What Are the Benefits of OpenCL for FPGAs? 

• Faster time-to-market using the OpenCL C-based parallel programming language as opposed to low-level hardware description language (HDL). 
• Quick design exploration by working at a higher level of design abstraction. 
• Easy design re-use by re-targeting existing OpenCL C code to current and future FPGAs.
• Faster design completion by generating an FPGA implementation of OpenCL C code in a single step, bypassing the manual timing closure efforts and implementation of communication interfaces between the FPGA, host, and external memories. 
• Increased performance by offloading performance-intensive functions from the host processor to the FPGA. 
• Significantly lower power by using the Altera SDK for OpenCL which generates only the logic needed to deliver. 

BittWare’s OpenCL Developer’s Bundle provides the tools necessary to begin developing applications for the Altera Stratix V using OpenCL, including the S5PH-Q board, a breakout board, the Altera Quartus II software, the Altera SDK for OpenCL, and the Altera USB Byte Blaster for downloading configuration and program data to the Stratix V FPGA.

The Open CL Developers Bundle is available at a special introductory price. For more information please contact the Sarsen Team on +44 1672 511166, or email us - info@sarsen.net

Good things, extremely small MiniPCIe shaped packages…

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen a lot of interest in the MiniPCIe modules from VersaLogic.

These little boards allow extra functions to be added to a system with almost no increase in overall package size.

VL-MPEe-E3 - MiniPCIe Ethernet Module

All of the MiniPCIe modules from VersaLogic have been designed for use in tough environments. They are rated for operation over the full industrial temperature range (-40º to +85ºC), and for high shock and vibration (MIL-STD-202G).

They are also guaranteed to be available for at least 5 years, supporting long term projects and providing the configuration stability required in many applications.

There are 8 different modules available, including Analog Input, Ethernet, Encrypted Memory and GPS Receiver, supporting Support GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and QZSS.

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

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

Extreme Engineering VPX VITA 62 Power Supplies

In today’s defense electronics environment, open standards are becoming increasingly critical to engineers to help them deal with the reality of regular and frequent technology upgrades.

The VPX (VITA 46) standard was developed in support of ruggedized, deployed applications and is the technology of choice for military applications where Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) are an issue. VPX supports both 3U and 6U form factors, provides a large amount of high-speed I/O to the backplane, and enables the use of modules that require up to 200 watts of power.

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) has expertise in designing and delivering high-quality, efficient, clean power modules. Their VPX COTS power modules are designed to meet the rigors of high performance, deployed military applications. X-ES has been actively involved in the development of the VPX and OpenVPX standardisation efforts, and was one of the first companies to develop VPX products. They have been shipping VPX products since 2006.

The latest power module from X-ES is the XPm2220, which opens the door to reducing the total SWaP, cost, and complexity of VPX-based systems by providing a number of distinctive capabilities, including industry-leading output power and efficiency. It also provides direct support for a wide input voltage range, and fits within a single 0.8-inch or 1-inch pitch 3U VPX slot.

The XPm2220 takes in a MIL-STD-704 or MIL-STD-1275 28 VDC input voltage and provides up to 300W on 3.3V, 5V, and ±12V at up to 90% efficiency. The XPm2220 also provides on-card MIL-STD-461 EMI filtering and MIL-STD-1275 transient suppression.

For more information please contact the team at Sarsen Technology on +44 1672 511166, or drop us an email – info@sarsen.net

It's the spookiest day of the year....

It’s officially the spookiest day of the year, and here at Sarsen we’ve had a bit of fun to mark the festivities!

A spooky edition of Sarsen's News Bytes was also issued today, if you're not on the mailing list you can sign up here. With no tricks, but plenty of treats, News Bytes features the latest product information, industry news and technical papers from our 12 franchised product lines.

We're off home to put on our fancy dress costumes, have a Happy Halloween!

Low Latency Technology - Removing the Barriers with BittWare

Low latency is the hot topic in the financial trading marketplace. Companies have to react to market events faster than the competition to make money. The round trip between the event and the final trade is quite significant...

• Event occurs at the source venue
• Information about that event is placed in a message on the wire
• Message reaches the decision-making application
• Application makes a trade decision based upon that event
• Order is sent to the trading venue
• Venue executes the order
• Order confirmation is sent back to application

All in a matter of milliseconds....

In April 2012, Fixnetix, global managed services provider for trading, market data and risk control, announced they were the first fintech (financial technology) company in Europe to offer the Altera Stratix V FPGA on the BittWare PCI Express slot-cards. The company announced late November 2010 a real-time low latency filter, iX-eCute, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), to solve the eternal industry conundrum of pre-trade risk, compliance and ultra-low latency execution.

BittWare's PCI Express slot-cards are the hardware boards that iX-eCute operates on whilst Altera Stratix is the industry’s highest performance FPGA with over 1 TeraFLOPS of processing. iX-eCute firmware deployment relies on minimal delays, significantly reduced jitter, energy and thermal requirements whilst commanding maximum performance per watt. BittWare offers a PCIe-compliant deployable slot-card that works out of the box, with validation, verification, and control software in place.

The S5PE from BittWare is a PCIe x8 card based on the high-bandwidth, power-efficient Altera Stratix V GX or GS FPGA. Features include -

• High density Altera Stratix V GX/GS
• PCIe x8 interface supporting Gen1, Gen2, or Gen3
• 2 QSFP+ cages allows dual 40GigE or 8 10GigE interfaces direct to the FPGA for lowest possible latency
• Up to 16 GB of DDR3 SDRAM with optional ECC
• Utility I/O includes: USB 2.0, RS-232, and JTAG

iX-eCute on the BittWare board with Altera Stratix processing is available for purchase through Fixnetix.

Sarsen Technology gets it's Spook On.....

The nights are drawing in, the leaves are turning, and there is a chill in the air. Here at Sarsen some of us are looking forward to a weekend of festive frights and spooky sights! Others, not so much...

All Hallow's Eve falls next Thursday, but this weekend will be filled with fancy dress, apple bobbing and, of course, pumpkin carving.

Jack-o'-lanterns are traditionally carried on All Hallows' Eve in order to frighten evil spirits. There is a well known Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o'-lantern which, in lore, is said to represent a "soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell".

"On route home after a night's drinking, Jack encounters the Devil who tricks him into climbing a tree. A quick-thinking Jack etches the sign of the cross into the bark, thus trapping the Devil. Jack strikes a bargain that Satan can never claim his soul. After a life of sin, drink, and mendacity, Jack is refused entry to heaven when he dies. Keeping his promise, the Devil refuses to let Jack into hell and throws a live coal straight from the fires of hell at him. It was a cold night, so Jack places the coal in a hollowed out turnip to stop it from going out, since which time Jack and his lantern have been roaming looking for a place to rest."

In Ireland and Scotland, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween, but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is bigger and softer – making it easier to carve than a turnip.

We had a go at carving. Not bad, if we do say so ourselves!

Have a wonderful weekend!