Northwich, Cheshire, 3rd January 2012 – Kane Computing Ltd (KCL) today reported the availability of a new prototyping platform that enables developers to combine D.Module DSP and FPGA boards with Ansi Vita S7 compliant FMC modules.
The D2-Base-FMC from D.SignT is a prototyping and evaluation platform for the D.Module2 family of DSP and FPGA boards. An Ansi Vita 57 compliant FMC LPC IO site allows it to be used with industry-standard mezzanine boards (A/D and D/A data acquisition, Video and Camera interfaces, Digital Radio frontends etc.).
The Eurocard size platform supports various communication interfaces which are accessible on the front panel: 1-lane PCIe, High-Speed USB2.0, and Ethernet (100Base-Tx or 1000-Base-T). Also provided is an RS232 port and additional FPGA and DSP I/O signals, which are accessible on a patch area below the D.Module2 site.
The D.Module2 standard allows stacking of modules so both an FPGA and a DSP module can be used for processing data for the same application.
Based on more than 8 years experience with the D.Module family of modular DSP systems, the development of the new D.Module2 family was motivated by the continually increasing speed and complexity of DSP systems. Today’s DSPs now include more and more specialized built-in peripherals and communication interfaces. New algorithms and applications are hungry for I/O and memory bandwidth and often require DSP-FPGA co-operation.
The D.Module2 DSP board generation addresses these needs with a significantly increased pin count to take the additional DSP peripherals and I/O channels accessible. The bus interface now supports asynchronous and synchronous operation with 500 Mbyte/s bandwidth, ideally suited to exchange data with FPGAs. Additional high-speed communication peripherals are available on the D.Module2: a 3 Mbit/s dual-channel UART and a USB 2.0 peripheral controller.
Available D.Module2 boards include a 720MHz TMS320DM642 fixed-point DSP board, a 300MHz TMS320C6747 floating-point DSP board, a 500MHz ADSP-TS203 TigerSHARC® floating-point board and a 2-channel, 8 MSPS, 12-bit AD/DA converter daughter card.
The latest product the D.Module2.6SLX45T includes a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA, to provide high speed data preprocessing and connectivity for D.Module2 DSP boards.
The Spartan 6LXT FPGA family is perfectly suited for high-speed serial communication: Four Gigabit Transceiver Ports are available for PCI/e, SATA, SGMII, or SRIO links, or used as high speed data converter interfaces using the JESD204(A) standard. One Gigabit transceiver is routed to
the DSP (top-side) connector, three are available on the bottom side connector.
The split D.Module2 bus interface on top and bottom-side connectors allows the FPGA to be inserted board between the DSP and a data acquisition board.
About Kane Computing:
KCL (www.kanecomputing.co.uk) is the UK Distributor for a number of companies and has been providing Image Processing, DSP and high performance computing products for use in industry, education and research since 1987. KCL has extensive knowledge and experience of providing innovative computing solutions for research, commerce and industry. KCL has a policy of continual improvement and operates its business in accordance with the requirements of ISO9001:2000. KCL is also approved under the Investors in People programme.
About D.SignT
D.SignT (www.dsignt.de) was founded in 1998 in Kerken, Germany. Their corporate goal is to provide off-the-shelf solutions for high-end, standalone DSP systems, particularly for industrial applications – a market requiring reliable, easy to maintain, and long-term available solutions. Their main product line is the D.Module family of DSP and Peripheral boards, which has recently been extended with the new D.Module2 family of cutting-edge, ultrahigh performance DSP boards. These products are in use worldwide in demanding applications like material inspection, automation, robotics, machine vision, and high-end measurement systems. Based on this proven technology they also offer custom designs which integrate additional peripherals or application specific interfaces, and reduce overall system costs. D.SignT products are fabricated in Germany using highest quality and environment-friendly manufacturing processes. Their association with DSP manufacturers and Spectrum Digital Inc., a leading manufacturer of development tools, allows them to provide complete tool chains for code development and debugging, and guarantees first-class support for our customers.
