VMETRO expands VPX DSP offering with two more products based on the Freescale MPC8641D and Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs

VMETRO, a leader in embedded computing solutions based on standards such as VXS, VPX, XMC and FMC that utilize multi-gigabit serial interconnects, today announced two new 6U VPX/REDI hybrid processing engines (HPE), the HPE640 and the HPE720. These products integrate Freescale Power Architecture™ MPC8641D dual-core PowerPC processors for general purpose processing with Xilinx® Virtex®-5 FPGAs in a single slot. Both boards, available in air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions, integrate the PowerPC processors with the Virtex-5 FPGAs, front-panel I/O, and VPX backplane connectivity. These two new products, along with products previously announced VPX by VMETRO, provide high-performance digital signal processing capabilities for a wide range of demanding Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) applications.

The HPE640 is well suited for applications that stream data from sensors to FPGAs over low overhead, point-to-point protocols like Aurora or Serial FPDP. It can also be integrated with VMETROs proven VXS products through the use of a hybrid backplane. The HPE640 integrates two MPC8641D PowerPC processors with a choice of two DSP-optimized Virtex-5 SX95T devices, LX155T devices optimized for high-performance logic and low-power serial connectivity or recently announced FX100T devices optimized for embedded processing with two PowerPC processor cores. Each of the two MPC8641D processors has 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM. Each FPGA has six directly connected banks of memory to maximize performance; 36MB (18-bits wide) of QDR2 SRAM memory across four banks and 256MB (16-bits wide) of DDR2 SDRAM memory across two banks. Front panel I/O is provided by an FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC/VITA 57) site connected to one of the Virtex-5 FPGAs. High-speed PCI Express® links can be utilized for efficient data movement between the two MPC8641D processors as well as between the Virtex-5 FPGAs and the PowerPC processors. In addition, an on-board PCI Express switch supports high-throughput data movement to and from the board via the VPX backplane. An on-board gigabit Ethernet switch provides Gb Ethernet links to each processor as well as four Gb Ethernet links to the backplane.

With an on-board Serial RapidIO (sRIO) switch and four x4 sRIO links to the backplane, the HPE720 supports a distributed switching system architecture that is well suited to Distributed Multi-Processing (DMP) applications. For high performance DMP systems, full mesh architectures can be implemented with HPE720 and the previously announced MPE730 without needing to have a dedicated switch card in the system. The HPE720 integrates a single MPC8641D PowerPC processor with two Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs. The FPGA sites can be fitted with the largest Virtex-5 FPGAs available for the most demanding DSP applications, specifically the Virtex-5 LX110T, LX220T, LX330T, SX240T, and FX200T devices. The MPC8641D PowerPC processors supports 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM. The FPGAs have 36MB (36-bits wide) of QDR2 SRAM memory across four banks and 512MB (32-bits wide) of DDR2 SDRAM memory across two banks. The HPE720 provides flexible front panel I/O with support for either two FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC/VITA 57) sites connected to the FPGAs or one FMC site and one XMC/PMC site. The XMC/PMC site supports PCI-X, PCI Express, and Serial RapidIO options. The on-board RapidIO switch interconnects the MPC8641D processor, the FPGAs, and the XMC site to the VPX backplane.

“Our new hybrid processor boards provide customers with flexibility when designing their VPX-based systems.” comments Thomas Nygaard, Chief Technology Officer of VMETRO. “The power and flexibility that come from combining these products with our other VPX products, like the FPE650 quad-FPGA board and the MPE730 quad-processor board, enable system architects to combine a mix of products to implement their unique system architecture.”

VxWorks and Linux support are provided for the HPE640 and HPE720 boards. To aid developers, a Software and HDL development suite is provided, including FPGA IP blocks such as DMA and memory controllers, a powerful software API for access to FPGA features, and sophisticated examples and utilities for FPGA configuration and development. All library functions are designed to leave a small logic footprint in the FPGAs so that the majority of the resources on all the FPGAs are available for user applications. VMETROs new Inter-Processor Communication software for Distributed Multi-Processing (DMP) systems, FusionIPC, is supported on the HPE720, SBC731 and MPE730.