VersaLogic Announces Embedded Server Available on Turnkey Evaluation Program

One of our longest running partnerships is with VersaLogic Corp. VersaLogic is a leading provider of rugged industrial computers to OEMs for embedded control and industrial control applications, and has a diverse range of form factors, processors and expansion options in their range.

VersaLogic is constantly innovating, which is great news for our UK customers who are always looking for cutting edge technology. We are very pleased to announce that their “Grizzly” 16-core embedded server product is now available as part of their Turnkey Evaluation Program loaner program, in which they offer their popular board-level products as boxed, turnkey systems, complete with an installed OS, for quick and easy testing and evaluation.

The Grizzly embedded server features an Intel 16-core processor, up to 128 GB of ECC RAM, two SFP+ 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, M.2 socket for data storage, and operation over the full -40° to +85°C industrial temperature range. The evaluation systems come pre-loaded with either Windows Server or a Linux OS, and a 250 GB solid state drive installed in the M.2 socket. SPF+ modules for 10 GbE Fibre and copper are included.


Len Crane, VersaLogic's President, points out how these eval systems can save time and effort; “These ready-to-power-up systems save a ton of time during initial testing. Just turn it on, load your software, and see how it performs. These Turnkey Eval Systems eliminate 95% of the setup required to test board-level products.”



Find out more 
The Grizzly evaluation systems are available now, and the program is very easy to access. To find out about the Grizzly, or the Turnkey Evaluation program, contact info@sarsen.net.

Source: Press Office, VersaLogic Corporation, 08/12/20

High Performance Computing Using Stratix 10 FPGA

We work with REFLEX CES to provide customers in the UK and Ireland with the latest leading-edge FPGA technologies, which now compete with CPUs and GPUs in the High Performance Computing (HPC) domain.

Their COTS boards are focused to provide the highest possible performance on the hardware side, together with the OpenCL BSP for ease-of-use on the software side.

One of the high performance computing projects REFLEX CES has been supporting is M2DC. M2DC provides significant benefits for data centres. The goal of the M2DC project is to develop a new class of low-power TCO-optimised appliances with built-in efficiency and dependability enhancements that are  easy to integrate with a broad ecosystem of management software and fully software-defined to enable optimisation for a variety of future demanding applications in a cost-effective way.

In this project, REFLEX CES developed the Stratix 10 FPGA SoC module (COMXpressSX) for acceleration (specifications, hardware development in COM Express form factor, firmware, middleware, and various Board Support Package including OpenCL), and also two types of mechanical chassis where several boards are included.

REFLEX CES product - COMXpressSX Stratix 10 board.

See more info at reflexces.com

Rugged SWaP Optimised Error-Correcting Credit Card Sized Computers

The team at VersaLogic has been very busy over lockdown, and we are excited to bring their latest offering to UK customers - a new SWaP-optimised embedded computer with error correcting (ECC) memory.

Code name “Harrier”

This brand new compact embedded computer features the latest 5^th generation Apollo Lake Atom™ processors  from Intel. Alongside error-correcting memory, the Harrier also includes a TPM 2.0 security chip, on-board power regulation, USB and Ethernet I/O ports, and Mini PCIe expansion sockets.  The soldered-on ECC RAM enhances both the reliability and ruggedness of the product, making it worthy of consideration for a range of mission critical applications.

This compact little computer is 55 x 95 x 29 mm, around the size of a credit card,  making it perfectly suited for SWaP applications such as in unmanned vehicles on land, underwater, or in the air. The Harrier is designed and tested for operation across the full industrial temperature range (-40º to +85ºC) and meets MIL-STD-202H specifications for shock and vibration. In addition, the on-board power regulation ensures reliable operation with fluctuating or noisy power sources.

READ FULL PRESS RELEASE

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.