AdvancedMC provides a completely flexible and reconfigurable platform ideal for serial communications applications requiring higher port density
santa clara, ca – October 27, 2009 – BittWare, a leading supplier of high-end COTS signal processing hardware, IP, and system solutions for communications, military/aerospace, and instrumentation markets, announced today at the Advanced/MicroTCA Summit the release of their SP/S4-AMC (SP/S4AM), the newest member of the “S4” family of board-level signal processing solutions which leverage Altera® Corporation’s Stratix® IV family of FPGAs. This Advanced Mezzanine Card (AdvancedMC) uses the Altera® Stratix® IV GX FPGA to provide unparalleled performance and flexibility, while four small form-factor pluggable-plus (SFP/SFP+) transceivers enable support of virtually any serial communication standard, including Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet, SONET, CPRI, and OBSAI. The four SFP/SFP+ SerDes channels are connected directly to the on-board Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA which handles the higher level communications protocols. For customers with extreme bandwidth requirements, the SP/S4AM provides an ideal solution in a low-power, compact form-factor.
“The processing requirements of our communications customers are growing, while at the same time, system real estate and power are decreasing. We’ve taken an extremely high-density FPGA – the Stratix IV GX – and added four SFP/SFP+ transceivers on the front-end,” stated Ron Huizen, VP of Technology for BittWare. “The result is a seriously powerful compact signal processing board that won’t hog system power, and can not only support your serial communication standard of choice, but is easily reconfigured when that choice changes.”
About the SP/S4-AMC
Based on Altera’s Stratix IV GX FPGA, BittWare’s SP/S4AM is a full-size, single width AdvancedMC that can be attached to AdvancedTCA (Advanced Telecom Compute Architecture) carriers or other cards equipped with AMC bays, and used in MicroTCA systems. It features a high-density, low-power Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA designed specifically for serial I/O-based applications, creating a completely flexible, reconfigurable AMC. A four-cage SFP/SFP+ connector, implemented on a VITA 57 (FMC) card, is available on the front panel with each transceiver providing support for various serial communication standards, including: Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet, SONET, CPRI, and OBSAI. The board also provides an IPMI system management interface, a configurable 15 port AMC SerDes interface supporting a variety of protocols. Additionally, the board features 10/100 Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, two banks of DDR3 SDRAM, two banks of QDRII+ SRAM, and Flash memory for booting the FPGAs and FINe.
BittWare’s ATLANTiS FrameWork (AFW) provides the Stratix IV GX FPGA on the SP/S4AM with fully validated board-level physical interfaces for I/O, communications, and memory, along with DMA engines and resource arbitration. AFW frees users of the SP/S4AM from having to reinvent low-level IP for the FPGA, and allows them to focus on the development of their application’s unique processing and I/O requirements.
BittWare’s FINe Bridge implements a complete host/control bridge for the SP/S4AM with extensive software support, thus removing that complexity from the data plane, I/O, and processing implemented on the Stratix IV GX FPGA.
Complete Development Support
The SP/S4AM is supported by BittWare’s BittWorks Tool Suite which provides everything necessary for host and embedded development and consists of:
Host Interface Library (HIL), a full featured, mature application programming interface (API) which provides a C callable interface to BittWare boards from the host system (connected or remote) to read and write to memory, provide board and processor control, and control interrupts
BittWare Utilities that includes access control to BittWare devices, a scan for BittWare devices on the network, access control from remote clients, automated host and DSP-based (if applicable) diagnostic tests, low-level debugging, loader for the ATLANTiS FPGA, and a graphing utility for exploring board memory
BWIO Library which provides a common interface for all supported components, easily supporting new features without API changes, and contains ATLANTiS/DSP/board component drivers, and POSIX-Based I/O (Open, Read,Write, Ioctl, Close)
Complementing the BittWorks Tool Suite is Altera’s Quartus II FPGA tools for application/code development.
BittWare also offers a MicroTCA Rapid Development Platform which combines the benefits of MicroTCA with the processing power of up to six Altera® Stratix® Family FPGAs in an integrated solution using a MicroBlade MicroBox 1U chassis, a N.A.T. MicroTCA carrier hub module, and an optional Concurrent Technologies processor AMC module. The development platform is a stand-alone setup allowing users to efficiently design and test their AMC and MicroTCA systems, significantly speeding up the development process.
Availability
The SP/S4AM is available today priced at under $5,000 in OEM quantities.
About BittWare, Inc.
Celebrating 20 years, BittWare is the leading designer and manufacturer of FPGA computing and hybrid (FPGA and DSP) board-level solutions based on Altera’s FPGAs and Analog Devices’ TigerSHARC® 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 VME/VPX, AMC, PCI, CompactPCI, PMC and standalone. For more information on BittWare and its innovative FPGA and DSP solutions, visit www.bittware.com.
