XMC-8131
FPGA Processing Engine XMC Module
Overview
Overview
The XMC-8131 is a key component in Spectrum’s series of software defined digital radio modules from the flexComm wireless communications product line. The XMC-8131, a single-width XMC (VITA 42.0) module, is intended for use as a front-end signal processing engine, or a general-purpose fixed-point or floating-point co-processor with a modular front panel interface to support a variety of I/O formats. The XMC standard is fully compatible with IEEE P1386.1 PMC standard but offers the additional benefit of dedicated high-speed links between an XMC-compliant mezzanine and carrier cards.
The XMC-8131 incorporates a single programmable Xilinx® Virtex-4 FPGA device. The standard configuration comes with the LX160 supporting 152,064 logic cells (LX40 up to LX100 and SX55 are future options). A second Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA is used to offload the communications to the carrier board from the user parts. This high-speed communications can be done via four low power Solano Communication IC compatible links or a dual Parallel RapidIO industry standard VITA 42.1 connection. The module features two banks of DDR2 SDRAM totaling 1 GB of capacity.
Features and Benefits
Features
- Single-width XMC form factor
- Conduction and air-cooled versions
- High speed, low latency deterministic data paths to processing engines provided over XMC interface by Solano Technology
- User-programmable Xilinx® Virtex-4™ LX160 FPGA device
- Two banks of 512MB DDR2 SDRAM totaling 1 GB
- 32-bit/33 MHz PCI bus interface for control
- JTAG connector compatible with Xilinx’s ChipScope™ debugger
- Modular front panel I/O interface to granddaughter cards that support a variety of I/O formats (air-cooled module only)
Benefits
- Dynamically reconfigurable, high-performance parallel processing engine
- Supports implementation of multi-channel, multi-mode receivers for both narrowband and wideband air-interfaces
- quicComm™ software architecture accelerates application development, simplifies the programming model and ensures code portability
- Deterministic operation; the time taken to process and move data is guaranteed
