FPGA module sets standard for analogue processing

Nallatech has enhanced the level of integration and DSP performance of its BenAdda analogue data processing module range by introducing the BenAdda-Pro, based on the Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA.

Nallatech has enhanced the level of integration and DSP performance of its BenAdda analogue data processing module range by introducing the BenAdda-Pro, based on the Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA.

The enhancements ensure the module can meet the performance demands of Nallatech's customers for the BenAdda range, in applications such as direct intermediate frequency processing in wireless communication systems, radar processing, software-defined radio, infra-red imaging and wideband cable systems.

The module is equipped with a Xilinx XC2VP50 FPGA device, which provides dual embedded PowerPC processors and up to 232 embedded multipliers alongside the high-speed ADC and DAC capabilities of the BenAdda Dime-II module.

The module's ADCs support a maximum sampling rate of 105Msample/s at 14bit, with DAC conversion at up to 160Msample/s at 14bit resolution ensuring high bandwidth communication capabilities.

Also onboard are 8Mbyte ZBT SRAM for data storage and buffering.

In addition, with the Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA the BenAdda-Pro has more than double the number of dedicated 18 x 18 embedded multipliers and FPGA block RAM compared with the equivalent sized Xilinx Virtex-II FPGA parts.

Based around Nallatech's Dime-II high-performance FPGA systems architecture, the BenAdda-Pro provides support for multiple form factors including PCI, cPCI, VME and PC/104plus as well as access to Dimetalk and Fuse development tools which streamline systems application development.

The 400MHz, 600DMIPS-plus embedded PowerPCs on the Virtex-II Pro FPGA allow developers to migrate tasks from a system processor onto the FPGA, thereby reducing complexity and component count.

Development is fully supported by the Xilinx EDK design tool, which integrates PowerPC application development into the FPGA design environment, therefore simplifying systems development as well as providing substantially increased performance through the implementation of high performance DSP designs which have traditionally in the past been deployed on external DSP/RISC processors.

Nallatech has also revealed that Xilinx is to use BenAdda-Pro as the de facto hardware platform for its XtremeDSP Pro development kit.

The high sampling speed and resolution of BenAdda-Pro, as well as its easy development features, are well matched to the DSP capabilities of the Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA, allowing BenAdda-Pro to meet the vast data input and output requirements of even the most demanding DSP implementations that operate on high quality analogue signals.

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