Product category:
Design and Development Hardware
News Release from: Lyrtech | Subject: SFF SCA Development Platform
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 16 November 2006
Platforms address needs for portable SDR
Lyrtech launched the SFF SDR development platforms at the 2006 edition of the SDR Forum Technical Conference.
Collaboration between Lyrtech and Texas Instruments has resulted in the new Small Form Factor (SFF) Software-defined Radio (SDR) Evaluation Module, the SFF SDR Development Platform, and the SFF SCA Development Platform Lyrtech launched the SFF SDR development platforms at the 2006 edition of the SDR Forum Technical Conference, an event that provides an international perspective on the current state of development of software-defined radio
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 20 Mar 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Designed around the TMS320DM6446 system-on-chip (SoC) from Texas Instruments and Virtex-4 SX35 FPGA from Xilinx, the SFF SDR development platforms address the needs for highly portable SDR of the military, public safety, and commercial markets.
The platforms are designed for low-power, compact, portable applications that closely resemble the architecture of portable radios and nano/femto basestations.
The SFF SDR development platforms are compact and completely self-contained, making them easy to test in the field.
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The SFF SDR Development Platform is separated into three distinct modules - the Digital Processing Module (sold separately as the SFF SDR Evaluation Module), Data Conversion Module, and RF Module - offering developers highly flexible development capabilities.
The Digital Processing Module uses the TMS320DM6446 SoC for baseband processing and the Virtex-4 FPGA.
This offers developers the performance necessary to implement custom intellectual property and acceleration functions with varying requirements from one protocol to another supported on the same hardware.
The Data Conversion Module is equipped with very fast dual-channel analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue convertors for signal conversion.
The RF Module covers the 360 to 960MHz frequency range, making it capable of supporting a wide array of applications.
The modularity of the SFF SDR development platforms make it easy to replace modules when they do not suit the requirements of a specific application or to add expansion modules.
The flexibility of this platform is further enhanced through its support of HDL/C programming, model-based design with Simulink, SCA environment, and advanced multicore ARM/DSP troubleshooting with the Multi integrated development environment (IDE).
The SFF SDR development platforms are the result of the collaboration between several key players of the SDR market - namely, Texas Instruments, Objective Interface Systems, Green Hills Software, Xilinx, The MathWorks and the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC).
Lyrtech was the catalyst in organising the partners and supervising the development.
Lyrtech selected the Texas Instruments TMS320DM6446 DSP SoC and high-performance and RF/mixed-signal components for the platforms.
The Digital Processing Module takes advantage of the DSP's integrated advanced SoC with an ARM9 general-purpose processor (GPP).
Because the DM6446 is equipped with a DSP and ARM on a single chip, developers save system space and money.
The DM6446 SoC also comes with a complete set of peripherals necessary for SDR development, including serial, USB, and Ethernet ports, as well as DDR2 memory.
"Lyrtech, a member of the TI DSP Third Party Network, has extensive experience in digital signal processing technology and routinely works with TI to deliver cutting-edge application-specific solutions", said Ram Sathappan, Worldwide Software-defined Radio Marketing Manager at Texas Instruments.
"The SFF SDR development platforms provide developers with the flexibility necessary for optimising power and cost".
Lyrtech selected the real-time operating system Integrity from Green Hills Software as the underlying software foundation of the SFF SDR development platforms.
By using the Posix-conformant Integrity real-time operating system, Lyrtech makes it possible for developers to build high-performance, secure, and deterministic SDR applications.
Furthermore, the Multi IDE is the most advanced multicore development environment available today, allowing developers to have simultaneous visibility into waveforms and applications running on the ARM and DSP cores on the SFF SDR development platforms.
"Green Hills is pleased to be part of this unique, industry leading SDR team that Lyrtech has put together", said Dan Mender, Director of Business Development at Green Hills Software.
"The SFF SDR development platforms expand the traditional SDR market beyond JTRS with a complete, integrated, validated solution for customers worldwide that are developing software-defined radio devices of all types".
Lyrtech developed the hardware of the SFF SDR development platforms and integrated the various components of the platforms, namely System Generator for DSP from Xilinx; as well as Matlab, Simulink, and Real-Time Workshop from The MathWorks.
"The SFF SDR development platforms are a very significant improvement over what exists today".
"This was achieved as a result of the collaboration between the leaders in the various technologies that are needed to develop the most powerful SDR development platforms in the industry", according to Benoit Fleury, Marketing Vice President at Lyrtech.
Power consumption is a key issue in designing wireless radios, for example, because of the very nature of wireless radios.
The SFF SDR development platforms are the only one in the SDR market to offer the power measurement capabilities that allow developers to precisely monitor the power consumption of individual components, such as the DSP or FPGA cores, giving them incredible insight into their systems and allowing them to develop less power-efficient applications.
The SCA-enabled version of the SFF SDR Development Platform, the SFF SCA Development Platform was an initiative of Xilinx, who specified the requirements and partly funded the development.
"The SFF SCA Development Platform is a real-world solution that demonstrates how Xilinx FPGA can be used as coprocessors for TI DSP to ultimately help customers reduce the size, weight, cost, and power of sophisticated signal processing intensive systems like software-defined radios", commented Narinder Lall, Senior Marketing Manager for DSP Solutions at Xilinx.
The SFF SCA Development Platform complies with Software Communications Architecture (SCA).
SCA is an open architecture framework that specifies interactions between hardware and software elements, enabling the development of applications in a component-based development environment.
SCA specifies the deployment and configuration of applications on the platform, creating an environment that greatly simplifies the development of applications and their portability, reducing development costs and times to market.
It is a key element of the US Military's Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and is being adopted worldwide by other military and public safety organisations.
SCA can also be used in every embedded systems market, from space to automotive, avionics, and commercial wireless devices.
Lyrtech selected the CRC's SCARI++ implementation of the JTRS SCA core framework as the central part of the SFF SCA Development Platform.
SCARI++ runs inside the ARM processor and controls the deployment and configuration of the complete platform.
The software development tools of the SCARI Software Suite made it easy to convert the SFF SDR Development Platform to an SCA-compliant platform.
The code generation capabilities, automatic real-time validation, and radio monitoring capabilities of the SCARI Software Suite were essential to the process.
CRC also provided invaluable technical expertise in achieving the SFF SCA Development Platform.
"We are thrilled to participate with Lyrtech and its partners in the development of the SFF SCA Development Platform", said Claude Belisle, Vice President of Satellite Communications and Radio Propagation at the CRC.
"With Lyrtech's latest offering, the SCA continues to expand its reach in the embedded world, making it a framework of choice for rapid and portable application development".
Lyrtech also selected Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) communications middleware from Objective Interface Systems for the SFF SCA Development Platform.
An international middleware standard, CORBA allows distributed systems to communicate over networks with location transparency.
ORBexpress, an SCA-compliant CORBA product, is a high-performance, small-footprint object request broker (ORB).
ORBexpress products, designed from the ground up for each of the GPP, DSP, and FPGA, allow the ARM9 processor, the DSP, and the FPGA processing resources to be treated as coprocessors, making the development process much easier.
The SFF SCA Development Platform is the industry's first to support CORBA on an FPGA.
"Lyrtech has brought together industry leaders in hardware and software to deliver a seamlessly integrated best-of-breed SDR platform to developers", said Joe Jacob, Senior Vice President, Objective Interface Systems.
"We are extremely pleased to provide the communications middleware for this new small form factor platform, which will substantially speed up the design of highly portable and flexible software-defined radios for defence and commercial applications".
The SFF SDR Development Platform is available from Texas Instruments distributors at a price of US $9900.
The SFF SDR Evaluation Module is also available from Texas Instruments distributors at a price of US $2900.
The SFF SCA Development Platform is available directly from Lyrtech.
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