Product category:
VMEbus Boards and Assemblies
News Release from: Pentek | Subject: Model 7142
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 07 July 2006
Software radio module offers more of
everything
PMC module provides complete software radio transceiver functions for IF or RF comms systems and offers increased capabilities, including dual Virtex-4 FPGAs, four A/D convertors and 50% more memory.
The Model 7142 is the latest addition to Pentek's popular range of software radio transceiver modules The PMC module provides complete software radio transceiver functions suitable for IF or RF communications systems and offers increased capabilities, including dual Virtex-4 FPGAs, four A/D convertors and 50% more memory
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 8 Nov 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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The module is also available in a variety of form factors including PCI, 3U and 6U cPCI, as well as a PMC conduction-cooled version.
"The Model 7142 is a successor to our popular Model 7140 for customers with demanding applications who need more of everything", says Rodger Hosking, Pentek's Vice President.
"We see customers dealing with more complex waveforms, more channels in radar and beam forming applications, and communication systems with wider bandwidths".
Further reading
Upgraded VME board has more power and peripherals
Due to strong demand for the industry's first onboard, one-slot Fibre Channel VME board, Pentek now offers additional I/O, memory and real-time processing options.
Speedy sampling for VMEbus DSP board
A new single-channel 6U VMEbus board features one of the fastest 12bit A/D convertors in the market with sampling rates to 210MHz.
Mezzanine board puts FPGA signal processing on VME
A novel configurable logic VIM-2 (Velocity Interface Mezzanine) module features dual FPGAs from the new high-density Xilinx Virtex-II Pro family, including Models XC2VP20 and XC2VP50.
"These market forces drive the need for better DSP processing performance, high-speed interconnects and increased data sampling rates".
"With four 125MHz A/D convertors coupled to two powerful Virtex-4 FPGAs, the Model 7142 offers an excellent solution".
A built-in clock/sync bus supports multi-module synchronisation as well as providing dual onboard oscillators for independent input and output clock rates.
The bus allows synchronisation of local oscillator phase, frequency switching, decimating filter phase and data collection among multiple Model 7142s.
One board acts as a master, driving clock, sync and gate signals out to a front-panel flat cable bus using low voltage differential signalling (LVDS).
The master alone can drive as many as seven slaves.
By using a Pentek Model 9190 clock and sync generator to drive the signals, developers can configure up to 80 boards to operate synchronously.
Digitised RF signals from the four 14bit 125MHz A/D convertors pass into a Virtex-4 SX55 FPGA for signal processing or routing to other module resources.
These resources include a DC-to-160MHz digital upconvertor, a 16bit 500MHz D/A convertor, 768Mbyte of DDR2 SDRAM and a Virtex-4 FX FPGA that handles I/O.
The FX device includes both a PCI bus interface with nine-channel DMA controller and a VITA 42-compliant XMC dual 4x gigabit serial interface to support switched fabrics with datarates up to 2.5Gbyte/s in each direction.
Factory-installed Virtex-4 SX55 functions include transient capture, advanced triggering modes and waveform playback along with control and programming interfaces to the other onboard resources.
"These Virtex-4 FPGAs represent major performance improvements for the user", notes Hosking.
"They take advantage of jumps in technology with reduced power consumption, higher clock rates, more than twice as many DSP slices and significantly enhanced DSP slice functions".
The module's FPGA resources are all fully available to the user.
In addition to taking advantage of factory pre-programming, which allows use of the Model 7142 out of the box, customers can implement their own DSP and data-handling functions using Pentek's GateFlow development tools.
These tools come as separate kits for each FPGA.
The design kit for the SX55 enables users to add their own IP to this FPGA, which specifically targets intensive signal processing algorithms.
The SX55 features 512 DSP slices, making it ideal for demodulation/modulation, decoding/encoding, decryption/encryption, digital delay and channelisation of the signals between reception and transmission.
The design kit for the FX allows installation of IP cores for various gigabit switched serial fabrics including Serial RapidIO, PCI Express and Aurora.
An optional version of the Model 7142 replaces the SX55 with the LX100 FPGA for applications requiring a maximum number of logic slices.
This version is similarly supported with its own GateFlow design kit.
The Model 7142 also benefits from Pentek's ReadyFlow board support libraries of C-callable device functions.
ReadyFlow simplifies board operation and set-up through easy-to-use function calls while offering low-level access to all of the board's hardware.
Pentek support libraries, device drivers and software development tools, plus third-party offerings, are all available for a variety of operating systems: Linux will be introduced first with Windows and VxWorks platforms to follow.
Available 8-10 weeks ARO, the Model 7142 PMC module is priced at $13,500.
Additional form factors include the 7242 6U cPCI board, 7342 3U cPCI board and 7642 PCI board.
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