Press Release
21 September 2010
RedLinX Offers the Latest BittWare Rugged VPX Signal Processing Board
Rugged/commercial board based on the Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA provides a completely reconfigurable signal processing solution for aerospace/defense and communications applications
RedLinX, a value-added distributor operating in Sub-Saharan Africa and BittWare, a leading supplier of high-end COTS signal processing solutions for military/aerospace, communications, and instrumentation markets, announced today at Africa Aerospace & Defence (AAD) 2010 the release of the BittWare S4-3U-VPX (S43X) board, the industry’s first rugged COTS 3U VPX card to take full advantage of Altera's high-density, high-performance Stratix® IV GX FPGA. This product will be available to the South African market later this year.
The board provides a configurable 25-port SerDes interface supporting a variety of protocols including Serial RapidIO, PCI Express, and 10 GigE. It also features 10/100/1000 Ethernet, and up to 4 GB of DDR3 SDRAM. Providing enhanced flexibility is the VITA 57-compliant FMC site, which supports 10 SerDes, 60 LVDS pairs, and six clocks, and enables the addition of a VITA-57 daughter card for added processing, data conversion, or both. BittWare’s ATLANTiS™ FrameWork and FINe™ Host/Control Bridge greatly simplify application development, and, along with the Stratix IV GX FPGA, create a completely flexible, reconfigurable rugged/commercial VPX board.
“Developing a complete FPGA-based embedded system is an enormous task,” stated Ron Huizen, VP of Technology at BittWare. “We’ve taken on a critical portion of that task by providing our customers with a VITA 65 (VPX) Stratix IV GX FPGA signal processing board supported by our ATLANTiS FrameWork for FPGAs. Developers now have a proven, validated COTS platform on which to add their application specific code, thus reducing risk and decreasing their time-to-market with a product that can be modified and upgraded at any point.”
“BittWare and Altera have a long history of working closely together to provide high-performance, reconfigurable FPGA-based COTS boards to the industry,” said David Gamba, senior manager of Altera's military business unit. “By leveraging the Stratix IV GX FPGA's low-power, multi-gigabit transceivers and high-density, high-performance architecture, BittWare’s S43X board delivers a rugged and completely flexible signal processing solution that is ideally suited to address SWaP constraints in mobile military application.”
S4-3U-VPX Performance Features
The S43X offers adaptable high-end signal processing performance capabilities for extended temperature, conduction cooled, military and defense applications in radar, electronic warfare, image processing, and signal intelligence, as well as commercial applications in communications, industrial control, and medical imaging.
The board is based on the Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA which was specifically designed for serial I/O-based applications requiring high-density, reconfigurable logic. It delivers 25 full-duplex, multi-gigabit transceivers via the Stratix IV GX FPGA, supporting PCI Express (Rev 1.0/2.0), 10 GigE, GigE, Serial RapidIO (Rev 1.0/2.0), and SerialLite II standards. It contains up to 530k equivalent logic elements (LEs), over 20 Mbits of embedded memory, and 1,024 embedded 18x18 multipliers. The FPGA implements BittWare’s ATLANTiS FrameWork and provides seamless routing of all on-board data, I/O, and memory.
A debug utility header provides 10/100 Ethernet, two RS-232 ports, and a JTAG port for debug support. The rear panel VPX interface includes GigE to the FINe, and 15 SerDes channels and 32 LVDS pairs (16 in, 16 out) to the Stratix IV GX FPGA.
The FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) site provides 8 high-performance SerDes, 2 additional SerDes, and 60 LVDS pairs, along with 6 clocks, I2C, JTAG and reset to the Stratix IV GX FPGA. The connector is compliant with the VITA 57 mezzanine standard for FPGA I/O, enabling designers to customize the S43X to their individual needs.
Complete Development Support
The S43X is supported by BittWare’s ATLANTiS FrameWork (AFW) for FPGA development which provides reconfigurable FPGA components, along with the infrastructure necessary to implement, simulate, synthesize, validate, and deploy a complete FPGA application on the Stratix IV GX FPGA.
Altera’s Quartus® II FPGA development software provides application/code development while BittWare’s BittWorks tool suite provides everything necessary for host and embedded development.
Comments Sean van der Walt, managing director at RedLinX, “We are very excited about the launch of the S43X, and believe that this high quality rugged solution is a product offers a new solution to clients operating in the Military, Security, Local Government, Telecoms, Transportation, Industrial, Mining and Logistics markets.”
Be sure to visit the RedLinX stand at Hall 6, stand 6S7 at the at AAD 2010. The trade days are 21-23 September and public days are 24-25 September.
Note: All Products are available at RedLinX Embedded Solutions.
About RedLinX™
RedLinX™ is a multifaceted specialist engineering technology company, offering leading edge technologies from embedded to high-performance computing and related products, open-systems and solutions. RedLinX™ operates in the ICT, Telecoms, Transport, Mining, Industrial, Security and Defence market segments throughout South Africa and Africa and is supported by their own locally based support, production and engineering facilities. RedLinX™ has four operating divisions, namely: Embedded Systems Division, Telecoms Systems Division, High Performance Systems Division and the Production & Engineering Systems Division. Operations are located in Cape Town and Midrand. RedLinX™ supports a wide range of blue-chip customers across multiple industries such as: Business Connexions, CSIR, Debeers, Dimension Data, FirstRand Bank, Reunert Group, SAAB Group SA, and Smile Communications.
Media Contact – Sean Van der Walt, +27 21 526 4160, sean@redlinx·co·za, http://www.redlinx.co.za
About BittWare, Inc.
For over two decades, BittWare, Inc. has been a leading designer and manufacturer of FPGA computing and hybrid (FPGA and DSP) 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) and XMC. For more information on BittWare and its innovative FPGA and DSP solutions, visit www.bittware.com.
