Embedded Processing & DSP

Lyrtech Introduces Its New AMC Family

The first in this new family is the Perseus 601X AMC. It’s designed around the powerful Virtex-6 FPGA and combines unsurpassed fabric flexibility, colossal external memory capacity and add-on, modular, high-pin-count, FMC-based (VITA 57.1) I/O cards.

The Perseus 601X is designed for high-performance, high-bandwidth and low-latency processing applications, and its FMC expansion site offers almost endless I/O possibilities — the ADAC250 FPGA mezzanine card (FMC) being only the first.

The power of the Perseus 601X’s Virtex-6 FPGA, when combined with Lyrtech’s advanced software development tools, makes it perfect for leading-edge telecommunications, networking, industrial, defense and medical applications that need to be less bulky and have higher degrees of integration, while being cheaper than traditional applications.

Highlights

Mid-size AMC for µTCA and AdvancedTCA platforms
Choice of powerful LXT and SXT Virtex-6 FPGAs
High-pin-count VITA 57.1 FMC expansion site for I/Os
DDR3 SODIMM interface to upgrade system memory
Supports multiple switch fabrics (PCIe, SRIO, XAUI, GigE)
Comprehensive line of software development tools

The second in this new family is the ADAC250 high-speed conversion FMC module. Designed around the high-performance A/D and D/A conversion technology from Texas Instruments, it integrates one dual, 14-bit, 250 MSPS analog-to-digital converter (ADS62P59); and a dual, 16-bit, 1 GSPS digital-to-analog converter (DAC5682Z; also capable of a 2–4× interpolation mode). Benefiting from multiple clocks and synchronization modes, the ADAC250 is at its best in DSP applications such as software-defined radio (SDR), advanced telecommunications (MIMO systems, cognitive radios, beamformers, LTE, WiMAX), signal intelligence (SIGINT), radar, sonar, and medical imaging applications.

Highlights

Two, 250 MSPS, 14-bit ADCs
Two, 1 GSPS, 16-bit DACs
Supports multiple clock configurations
Versatile and industry-standard VITA 57 FMC module
Plug & Play with Lyrtech’s µTCA Perseus AMCs

Software development tools

The Perseus 601X comes with a comprehensive set of integrated, multilayer software development tools that offer users a choice of environments — from a base-level hand-coded design environment to a high-level graphical model-based design environment.

Board software development kit

Commonly referred to as the BSDK, this kit offers reconfigurable FPGA components and reference designs, along with the infrastructure to implement, simulate, synthesize, validate, and deploy complete applications on the card’s Virtex-6 FPGA. This development kit takes care of the tiresome burden of reinventing interface drivers for the FPGA, freeing you to focus on unique, value-added development.

The kit includes a complete and fully tested set of Virtex-6 interfaces to all the Perseus 601X’s peripherals:

High-speed GTX transceivers
External memory controllers
MicroBlaze instantiation and startup through a Linux kernel (from PetaLogix) running Lyrtech’s central communication engine (CCE) server application
External control through PCIe and GigE
APIs and graphical interfaces for remote board management (such as FPGA application deployment, parameter control and data streaming)

The BSDK also offers:

An array of reference designs for quick code implementation
Applicative examples
Streamlined troubleshooting tools capable of recording/playback from external memory and more
An unsurpassed integration to the model-based design workflow. Keep reading for details

Model-based design kit

The optional Perseus 601X MBDK allows easily designing high-performance digital signal processing systems within the card’s FPGA with the MATLAB/Simulink design environment and extensive DSP IP libraries from Xilinx.

For even greater flexibility, System Generator for DSP supports MicroBlaze soft processor cores, which allows using high-level abstractions that can be automatically compiled into the FPGA without losing any performance over VHDL designs. Use it with ChipScope Pro to troubleshoot your applications.

These features, combined with the capabilities of the Virtex-6 FPGA, make it simple for designers to harness the parallel processing power of an FPGA.

The Perseus MBDK edge

Interface and integrate with the interface libraries supplied with the Perseus in no time flat.
Benefit from all-integrated configuration, simulation, and code generation advantages of the Perseus’ MBDK.
Save precious development time using the troubleshooting tools part of the MBDK, namely recording/playback tools and shared-memory GigE/PCIe HIL co-simulation tools.
Configure the Perseus in a snap with its graphical configuration tools.
Draw the maximum out of the Perseus’ streaming interface between the FPGA and host computer running MATLAB (GigE/PCIe).
Further your understanding of the Perseus with its extensive library of demonstrations and applicative examples.