Product category:
Embedded Computing and Control
News Release from: Hunt Engineering | Subject: Heron FPGA family
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 09 April 2001
Reconfigurable logic boosts DSP module
family
Hunt Engineering has extended its Heron range of modular products for digital signal processing to offer modules that use Xilinx FPGAs to offer powerful DSP processing and hugely flexible I/O.
Hunt Engineering has extended its Heron range of modular products for digital signal processing to offer modules that use Xilinx FPGAs to offer powerful DSP processing and hugely flexible I/O The Heron FPGA family brings the power of the Xilinx XtremeDSP initiative to existing Heron users as well as opening new markets for these systems
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 21 Oct 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
High-gate-count FPGA module aids real-time DSP
The Heron-FPGA4 DSP module from Hunt Engineering has a Xilinx Virtex II with a choice of 3, 6 or 8 million gates.
Modules ease FPGA-based digital signal processing
Building on the recent addition of FPGA modules to the popular Hunt Engineering Heron range for modular DSP, the Heron-FPGA3 and Heron-IO2 modules use Virtex II FPGAs from Xilinx.
For example digital radio customers can remove an IF stage from their system by digitising directly at 100Mz rates and performing digital down conversion in the FPGA.
Even systems using lower rates can benefit from this technology.
Control systems for example can benefit from the very low latency of acquiring data from the real world.
Further reading
Carrier puts DSP into embedded applications
Hunt Engineering has released Heron-Base1, a single-slot module carrier for its Heron DSP range.
Carrier puts DSP on PCI via virtual FIFOs
Hunt Engineering has released HEPC9, a PCI format Heron module carrier, for the Heron DSP range.
Card combines A/D and D/A with a million gates
The Heron-IO4 combines a million-gate Xilinx Virtex II FPGA with one channel of 14bit A/D and two channels of 14bit D/A conversion.
"This is a natural extension of our modular range of products for DSP, but we hadn't realised how much demand there was until we disclosed our plans to our existing customers", said Pete Warnes Technical Director of Hunt Engineering.
"Suddenly things are possible that we could only imagine before", said Steve Bradshaw President of Traquair Data Systems (Strategic partner of Hunt Engineering in the USA) "several of our customers have applications in mind for these products".
"Allowing customers to select between FPGA and dedicated DSP processors like the C6000 is a powerful message", said Ralph Weir, Director of Sales and Marketing, Hunt Engineering "but with Heron systems they can have both!".
When fitted to a Heron module carrier like the HEPC8 PCI card they can have their "program" downloaded from the PC over the Heron Serial Bus.
This allows users to program and re-program them just as they would with the DSP elements of the system.
Some modules in the range use Spartan II FPGAs allowing use of the "Xilinx WebPack" a free set of development tools.
The modules that use the Virtex and Virtex II FPGAs offer a wider range of gate densities and features, but require the Foundation, Foundation ISE or Xilinx Simulink System Generator which must be licensed from Xilinx.
In the licensed software Xilinx include several IP cores for DSP, allowing simple configuration of FFTs, digital data synthesis (DDS), correlators, filters etc - making it easier to program the Heron-FPGA to do DSP than a conventional digital signal processor.
The Heron-FPGA range can be combined with C6000 Heron modules, and fast I/O modules to complete a DSP system.
The family includes Heron-IO modules that have A/D, D/A etc on the same module as the FPGA making them ideal for pre or post processing of data from a DSP.
Available today are three Heron modules with FPGAs, each 4 x 2.5in.
The Heron-FPGA1 covers Virtex gate counts between 50K and 200K gates, the Heron-FPGA2 covers Virtex devices between 400K and 1Million gates.
Both these modules provide flexible digital I/O as well as access to the Heron-FIFOs provided by the module carrier board, for communication with other nodes in the system.
The HERON-IO1 combines a Spartan II FPGA with 200Kgates with two channels of 105Msample/s 12bit A/D.
Each input has a separately controllable programmable gain stage allowing a wide range of analogue input signals.
Other modules in the range are planned for release over the coming months.
These will include the new Virtex II range of FPGAs extending the number of gates possible to 10 million, and a variety of other I/O possibilities.
For example D/As, zero pipeline A/Ds for control systems, LVDS interfaces for digital cameras and Fibre Channel interfaces for fast direct to disk storage.
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