Curtiss-Wright Controls Announces New Full Mil-Temp Xilinx Virtex-6-based 3U VPX FPGA DSP Engine

ASHBURN, VA – Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions, a business group of Curtiss-Wright Controls, has introduced its second Xilinx® Virtex®-6 FPGA-based VPX digital signal processing (DSP) engine, the VPX3-453 FPGA module, in a compact 3U VPX form-factor. The VPX3-453 is a high performance, small form factor DSP engine that combines a Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA and a Freescale® Power™ Architecture MPC8640D processor. This small form-factor 3U VPX (VITA 46/48) card is ideal for SWaP-constrained environments and is designed to support the full -40 + 85 deg C rugged operating temperature range. The VPX3-453 is the follow-on to Curtiss-Wright’s popular Virtex-5-based VPX3-450, with which it provides backwards compatibility to optimize technology migration. The VPX3-453 speeds and simplifies the integration of advanced DSP and image processing into embedded systems designed for demanding Radar Processing, Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), ISR, Image Processing, and Electronic Warfare applications.

“Curtiss-Wright is a leader in bringing advanced COTS FPGA processing to rugged open architecture system designs for defense and aerospace applications,” said Lynn Bamford, senior vice president and general manager of Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions. “Building on the success of our earlier Virtex-5-based VPX3-450, the new VPX3-453 is designed to bring the processing power of Xilinx’s Virtex-6 FPGA to embedded systems that must deliver optimal FPGA and Processor performance, over the full rugged temperature range, in a compact, SWaP-optimized space.”

The VPX3-453 features Gen 2 PCIe with Non-Transparent Bridge support for better handling of large 3U systems, as well as additional I/O flexibility to the backplane from either the XMC or FPGA. To better support its on-board Virtex®-6 FPGA, the board features extensive FPGA memory bandwidth, including 2.4 GB/s SDRAM and 4.8 GB/s SRAM performance. FPGA memory support includes one (1) bank of DDR2 SDRAM and two (2) banks of QDR-II+ SRAM. Two (2) 4-lane high-speed serial ports to the backplane and an additional port to the XMC site provide a total of 7.5GB/s bandwidth into and out of the FPGA in addition to the primary 4-lane PCI Express® (PCIe) link to the on-board fabric.

Software Support

Software support for the VPX3-453 includes BSPs for VxWorks® or Linux®.

To ease and speed application development, Curtiss-Wright also offers its Continuum FXTools FPGA design kit. Software and development tools for the VPX3-453 are part of the Continuum Software Architecture (CSA). The Continuum FXtools package contains the full Continuum Firmware and BSP package, plus additional VPX3-453 specific support libraries for the MPC8640 processor using such off-the-shelf operating systems as VxWorks and Linux. Additional development support includes highly-optimized IP Blocks, development environment, reference designs, scriptable simulation test benches and software libraries.

The VPX3-453 enhances Curtiss-Wright’s comprehensive family of rugged 3U VPX modules, which comprises both Power Architecture (VPX3-127) and Intel® Architecture (VPX3-1256/7) single board computers (SBCs) and GP-GPU-based processors (VPX3-491). Many combinations of these interoperable cards can be put together to form powerful systems in a compact space.

For more information on the VPX3-453, please visit www.curtisswrightds.com/products/dsp-fpga/3u-vp[…]