Masterclock Awarded FAA Contract for Airport Surveillance Radar Modernisation

Here at Sarsen we work with some pretty cool technology partners. Lucky us. One of the standout manufacturers in our portfolio is Masterclock. Their precise time and frequency solutions are used in mission critical operations around the globe.

Accolades are frequent, but their latest announcement has turned heads for all the right reasons. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has selected the Masterclock GMR1000 to be used as the primary timing source for a modernisation upgrade to airport surveillance radar systems around the USA. The FAA needed to overcome obsolescence of legacy elements critical to system operations. This, paired with the need for commercial internet protocol (IP)-based equipment capable of providing equivalent functionality triggered the significant modernisation effort.

This award is the result of an extensive validation effort to ensure the modern timing technology from Masterclock integrates perfectly into the legacy system environment.

John Clark, President and CEO of Masterclock says, “System operators around the country are being asked to extend the lifespans of critical infrastructure beyond their original design considerations and capabilities. We’re proud to have created a cost-effective and robust platform with the GMR1000 to meet these legacy and present needs.”

The Nerdy Bit

The GMR1000 is a compact master clock that can reference a variety of timing sources and provide a range of outputs including NTP, IEEE1588 PTP, IRIG-B, SMPTE, 10Mhz, 1PPS and more. 

Each GMR1000 used by the FAA will be equipped with on-board GPS reception capabilities for long-term steering and oven-compensated quartz crystal oscillators (OCXOs) to provide accurate holdover to mitigate disruptions to GPS availability while ensuring accurate timing signals continue to be delivered via Precise Time Protocol (PTP) to downstream dependent equipment during a disrupted RF environment.

GMR1000 Datasheet

Masterclock worked closely with the FAA to identify and implement a specific set of configuration parameters for the GMR1000 to in order to fully optimise the integration of the device with the other sub-systems included in the modernisation effort. 

The successful integration, evaluation, and value proposition led to a single-source announcement for the Masterclock GMR1000 as the preferred solution for the project earlier this year.

If you's like to know more about the GMR1000 or the Masterclock product line please get in touch with us - info@sarsen.net

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

Rugged MIL-STD-810 Monitors for Extreme Environments

The Talon Series of COTS rugged monitors from EIZO Rugged Solutions are ready to be deployed in extreme environments, and can be customised to meet specific requirements. Be it applications for the very latest systems or retrofitting legacy systems, Talon can be tailored to suit your project.

Talon monitors are built to survive harsh environments.

• All monitors come standard with MIL-STD-810 and MIL-STD-461
• LED backlight for a long lifecycle 
• Optical bonding for improved durability and visibility 
• IP65 protection against dust and water jets

EIZO Talon Displays Brochure

All monitors come with various features to make installation easy in any setting, including standard interfaces such as 3G-SDI, DVI, RGB, USB and serial communication, as well as a 19-inch rack mounting option. Standard panel sizes of 21.5-inches and 24-inches are available, other sizes can be provided on request.

As well as easy installation, the Talon monitors come with several features that make usability super easy. Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture allows users to display multiple inputs at once, and a projected capacitive (PCAP) touchscreen option with 5-point multitouch or analog resistive touch option makes using the interface straightforward and intuitive.

For more information about the rugged Talon range please speak to one of our engineers - they know all about these products and would be very happy to discuss your application requirements...

EIZO Rugged Releases 6-channel XMC Graphics/GPGPU Card

EIZO Rugged has just announced a game-changing, all-in-one solution with the ability to capture, process, encode, decode, display, and stream video and audio data, all with exceptionally low latency.

Rugged and packed with features, it's a thing of beauty - our team is excited to talk to you about it...

Based on the NVIDIA® Quadro® P2000 GPU with NVIDIA Pascal™ architecture, the Condor NVP2102AxX card also efficiently supports CUDA and OpenCL based GPGPU computing, AI processing (artificial intelligence), deep learning and H.265/H.264 encoding/decoding, with all of the processing done in hardware.

High-speed data transfer and exceptionally low latency levels are achieved with the Condor NVP2102AxX graphics processor by optimising NVIDIA’s GPUDirect RDMA (remote direct memory access) feature. This enables the captured video data to be sent over PCIe, bypassing system memory, directly to GPU memory for analysis/processing/display, almost in real time.

In GPU memory, the applications can do processing such as image analysis, image enhancement, 360-degree video stitching, sensor fusion, and target detection using the GPGPU (CUDA/OpenCL™) technology. The card supports multiple outputs including 3G-SDI, DisplayPort and DVI.

With air or conduction cooled options available, as well as a number of input/output configurations please contact one of our engineers to discuss the correct configuration for your application.

Compact Modular RFSoC Solutions

The boundary-pushing team at Annapolis Micro Systems has taken a pioneering approach to delivering powerful RFSoC functionality. Their WILD FMC+ RFSoC Cards are compact modular solutions that operate standalone. If your application is very processing-intensive they can be paired with a WILDSTAR 3U or 6U VPX or PCIe Baseboard.

The concept behind Annapolis' RFSoC Cards is simple: to provide full RFSoC functionality in a small, flexible package that has solved the most demanding circuitry, signal integrity, and packaging challenges. No small feat.

Xilinx’s Zynq® UltraScale+™ RF System-on-Chip (RFSoC) combines multiple elements that were formerly discrete operations. In defense and military applications like C4ISR and radar, Size, Weight, Power and Cost (SWaP-C) considerations are crucial. Applications like UAVs, backpacks, handheld devices, and custom-integrated applications are increasingly subject to smaller spaces and power sources.

Following an intensive design and manufacturing process Annapolis' RFSoC cards provide turnkey solutions ready for immediate deployment within any standard OpenVPX or PCIe system, or within Annapolis’ proven 100Gb Ethernet WILD100™ EcoSystem. They are also compatible with SOSA™-aligned Boards and Systems.

If you require high-performance RFSoC-enabled data digitisation, processing or storage in a compact, rugged environment, these WILD RFSoC Cards are for you. Contact us to have an engineer recommend the best approach for your application.

©2020 Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc.

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

Embedded Technology Integrated into an ECG Device

Embedded electronics have never been so popular within the design of new products, especially when operators require touch screen technology for interaction and quick start operation. Based on this "mobile phone" style approach, customers in the medical market have started requesting new features for their devices, including capacitive touch screens, modern Graphical User Interfaces and Wi-Fi capabilities for remote control and monitoring.

One of the key medical areas where this technology is being utilised is in the design of ECG machines. In this app note, we look at how DAVE Embedded Systems is using their specific knowledge in this industry to design and develop a system able to support a rich and modern user experience including Wi-Fi or 4G connectivity, which provides access to the cloud through secure certificates and secure boot.

Read App Note