CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – May 24, 2011 – BittWare, a leading supplier of high-end COTS signal processing solutions for military/aerospace, communications, and instrumentation markets, announced today the release of their VPX Rapid Development Platform (VRDP) which combines the benefits of OpenVPX with the processing power of up to five Altera Stratix® Family FPGAs in an integrated system solution. The development platform is a completely stand-alone setup for designing and testing VPX systems. It offers up to five OpenVPX slots, allowing for a wide array of system configurations. The system arrives tested and configured, enabling designers to speed up the development process. And with the addition of BittWare’s ATLANTiS FrameWork, which enables reconfigurable data routing, this development system allows users to fully design and debug in a flexible environment.
“The benefits of the VPX standard make it ideal for high-bandwidth and high-performance applications. This technology is now available in a robust and mature development platform that can combine up to five OpenVPX-based FPGA boards with a variety of high-speed data conversion,” stated Darren Taylor, Senior VP of Sales and Marketing at BittWare. “The VPX Rapid Development Platform provides our customers with maximum flexibility, enabling them to very quickly move their VPX design from development to deployment.”
VPX Rapid Development Platform Performance Features
The standard platform includes a VITA 46/65 compliant 5-slot 3U VPX backplane, featuring a twisted ring routing topology, with each slot having two fat pipes for slot-to-slot connectivity. This leaves plenty of signals available for rear panel I/O, allowing the system to be adapted to various requirements. Additional backplane profiles are also available (contact BittWare for details).
The VRDP includes a 19″ rackmount enclosure. The 4U high chassis accommodates five 3U x 160 mm boards and includes a 350 W ATX power supply. It provides integrated cooling with two 12 VDC fans and bottom-to-top airflow, and includes an advanced EMI shielding package.
BittWare FPGA 3U VPX Boards
The development platform is available with up to five BittWare FPGA 3U OpenVPX boards; options include the S4-3U-VPX (S43X) or GT-3U-VPX (GT3X). The S43X features a large Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA, and the GT3X features the Stratix II GX FPGA and four Analog Devices ADSP-TS201 TigerSHARC DSPs. The OpenVPX boards support BittWare’s ATLANTiS FrameWork (AFW) for control of I/O, routing, and processing. Each board also features BittWare’s FINe for control plane interface and processing, extensive on-board memory, and I/O interfaces including SerDes, 10/100 Ethernet, JTAG, and RS-232.
A variety of A/D and D/A FMC I/O modules are available for the S43X to expand the system³ I/O capabilities. Rear transition modules are also available for the S43X and GT3X to provide convenient rear panel access to GigE, SerDes, and LVDS I/O signals.
Additional Hardware Options
The VPX Rapid Development Platform is available with an optional Single Board Computer 3U VPX module (Concurrent Technologies TR 501/36x) offering a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, up to 4 GByte DRAM, an XMC module interface with rear I/O, and two GigE ports, which connect to a rear transition module (also from Concurrent Technologies). In addition to GigE, the RTM provides two SATA connectors, a USB connector, and video.
Additional options for the VRDP system include a 1 TB hard drive and a DVD read/write drive. Both drives connect to the Concurrent RTM via the SATA connectors.
Complete Software Support
BittWare offers a complete suite of software development tools to make developing and debugging applications easy and efficient. The tools include device drivers, host interface libraries, a wide variety of diagnostic utilities and configuration tools, and debug tools. Altera³ Quartus II provides development tools for the Stratix Family FPGAs.
Availability
The VPX Rapid Development Platform is available now. Prices vary by configuration.
About BittWare, Inc.
For over two decades, BittWare, Inc. has been a leading designer and manufacturer of FPGA computing and hybrid (FPGA and DSP) COTS board-level solutions based on Altera’s FPGAs and industry leading DSP technology. The company provides the essential building blocks required by OEMs for developing and deploying their innovative systems in defense, communications, instrumentation, and life sciences applications. BittWare’s product offering addresses OEM needs from prototype-to-production and span a variety of platforms, including VPX, VXS, AMC, CompactPCI, FMC (VITA 57), XMC, and PCIe. For more information on BittWare and its innovative FPGA and DSP solutions, visit www.bittware.com.