VME carriers put top power SoC to work

Micro Memory has introduced the CoSine-on-Othello MM15x0 and MM-16x0 VME carriers for FPGA processing on serial switch fabrics.

Combining the industry's most powerful system-on-chip, the CoSine, with the application optimised architectures of Othello VME carriers for the VxS VITA 41 and VPX VITA 46 serial link formats, Micro Memory has introduced the CoSine-on-Othello MM15x0 and MM-16x0 VME carriers for FPGA processing on serial switch fabrics.

These ground-breaking products include significant industry firsts including: the first Serial RapidIO FPGA processing solutions on VME; the first VME boards to include complete onboard Serial RapidIO switch fabric connectivity; the first VME boards to use the V-4 SX or V-4 LX series of Xilinx FPGAs; and the first rugged conduction cooled and rugged air cooled Serial RapidIO VME solutions.

The MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 will debut in Booth 26 at the Bus and Boards Show, 16th and 17th January 2006 in Long Beach, California.

The innovative MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 support continuous data streams through independent, nonblocking pathways.

Targeting applications such as synthetic aperture and phased array radar, software defined radio, signal intelligence and semiconductor and medical imaging, the MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 use FPGAs for DSP operations such as FFTs, filters, and image or data compression to provide significant performance benefits over conventional DSPs or general purpose embedded RISC processors.

The MM-1500 and MM-1600D are the first VME boards to include the powerful V-4 SX series of FPGAs from Xilinx, unique in its significant hardware resources for DSP functions.

Additionally, they are the first to include the V-4 LX series of FPGAs, which stand apart in their logic resources for applications requiring the maximum possible gate count.

The MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 carriers both feature two high-speed mezzanine sites, each of which can be configured for a PMC or XMC.

Configured for PMC support, each PCI bus can operate in PCI 2.3 mode at up to 66MHz or in PCI-X mode at up to 133MHz, while configured for XMCs, the sites can support the Aurora protocol or Serial RapidIO x4.

Each site has a dedicated pathway directly to FPGA processing resources that is unobstructed by any bus translation bridges, significantly improving latency and throughput.

The MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 include two independent CoSine Compute Nodes (CCNs).

Each CCN is comprised of a CoSine Primary Device (V-II Pro 2VP70) that includes two interface ports (PCI-X, Serial RapidIO, or Aurora), two embedded PowerPC processors, a CoSine Companion Device (V-4 SX55 or V-4 LX160), seven independent memory arrays, and two processor programmable Flash arrays.

One multiported primary DDR array for seamless bus translation between the mezzanine port and backplane port, a dedicated DDR array for each PowerPC processor, and four independent QDR II SRAM arrays local to the SX55 or LX160 for FPGA processing operations make up the seven independent memory arrays in the CCN.

Aggregate memory bandwidth exceeds 20Gbyte/s per CCN, providing a total of over 40Gbyte/s on the MM-15x0 and MM-16x0.

Each of the embedded PowerPCs in the 2VP70 device is a fully functional computer with its own DDR array, programmable Flash, UART, and shared Ethernet.

Processors can host device drivers, perform message passing, service interrupts, or execute floating point operations.

Each processor includes a complete BSP with all internal SoC device drivers fully integrated so customers can download application files "out of the box".

In addition to a VME320 2eSST interface, the MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 are the first VME boards to include complete onboard Serial RapidIO switch fabric connectivity.

The VxS VITA 41 MM-1500 and MM-1550 include two independent Serial RapidIO ports on P0 per the VITA VxS 41.2 specification.

Alternatively, two Aurora ports can be configured to P0 per the VITA 41.5 and VITA 55 draft standards.

The MM-1600 and MM-1650 each include four independent Serial RapidIO ports on to the backplane per the VITA VPX 46.3 specification.

The SX55s and LX160s also have additional FPGA platform Flash to store multiple bitstreams.

Because the principal system-on-chip functionality is largely contained in the 2VP70 CoSine primary device, the MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 are optimally designed for reconfigurable processing.

This approach enables the SX55 or LX160 CoSine Companion Devices, which contain user programmable logic, to be reconfigured by the 2VP70 CoSine Primary Devices without the 2VP70s needing to reconfigure themselves.

The rugged, extended temperature air cooled DR models have operating temperatures of -40 to +71C and the rugged, conduction cooled DT models have operating temperatures of -40 to +85C.

Each was designed for optimal heat dissipation and deployment in environments that undergo severe shock and vibration.

In addition to optimised architectures, performance, and flexibility, the CoSine-on-Othello MM-15x0 and MM-16x0 offer the shortest possible FPGA development times.

With their completely preconfigured FPGA infrastructure, users can focus on developing their application specific logic without concerning themselves with coding other modules, complicated SoC integration, or verification.

Initial list pricing for Micro Memory's CoSine-on-Othello MM15x0 and MM-16x0 VME carriers is $34,500 per unit with volume discounts available.

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